


don't bring a bazooka to a gunfight

by supinetothestars



Category: Daredevil (TV), Deadpool - All Media Types, Spider-Man - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Assassins & Hitmen, Attempted Non-Consensual Experimentation, Blackmail, Canon-Typical Violence, Clinton Church, Dramatic Irony, Gen, Hitman AU, Identity Porn, Laboratories, Mutual Pining, Slow Burn, Team Red, Unreliable Narrator, volunteering
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-25
Updated: 2020-11-30
Packaged: 2021-03-02 05:33:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 19
Words: 41,678
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23829907
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/supinetothestars/pseuds/supinetothestars
Summary: Only a few days after the infamous hitman Deadpool saves Spider-Man's life in a firefight, he takes a job to kill Spider-Man's very own beloved mentor, Daredevil. Things go south immediately.Alternately:Deadpool might not be the most intimidating assassin up for hire, but he's certainly one of the most infamous. He has a reputation for playing dirty, and he never fails to take out his marks. A few days after saving Spider-Man's life in a firefight, Deadpool agrees to take a job hunting down Daredevil, the beloved guardian of Hell's Kitchen. He goes undercover as a civilian in peril, Wade Wilson, in an attempt to finish the job, but finds that the unanticipated risks of such a venture may outweigh the benefits. On the bright side, he gets to spend his afternoons with Matt Murdock, a good-hearted lawyer who claims to know exactly how to help. Murdock has a terrible sense of humor and is oblivious to Wade's double identity, but it helps that he's cute as hell.Featuring the Hudson River, the bullshitting of New York City addresses, Wade's misunderstanding of the uses of bleach, Eve the weapons dealer, Peter Parker's friendly distrust, and some very convoluted metaphors.
Relationships: Matt Murdock & Elektra Natchios, Matt Murdock & Peter Parker, Matt Murdock & Peter Parker & Wade Wilson, Matt Murdock/Wade Wilson
Comments: 188
Kudos: 349





	1. Chapter 1

Wade avoids superheroes.

Wade _always_ avoids superheroes.

It’s not just the risk of imprisonment that comes with every encounter - though that certainly has its downsides. It's that, for the most part, he finds them to be insufferably lacking in good humor. Sure, they may be selfless heroes, constantly risking their lives for the greater good, but despite being blissfully unaware of their own fourth wall, some part of them seems to realize that they’re franchise protagonists, because their fondness for unnecessary drama is rivaled only by their terrible senses of humor, and their moral grounds are so high they're choking on clouds. Sure, there are a few whom he can’t help but admire with all the fervor of his eight year-old self pinning up ragged Captain America posters in his bedroom wall, but like celebrity affairs or Scott Summers’s ass, they’re best observed from a safe distance, preferably with headphones ready to block out the lectures.

That’s not to say that Wade would mind getting up-close and personal with Captain America if the situation were to arise, but - well. The point is that he can’t stand the looks of superiority that plaster across every superhero’s face whenever they glance in Wade’s direction. Just because they're is a selfless and courageous heroes and the Wade is a ruthless killer-for-hire with a set of moral codes as cracked and crumbling as his fourth wall doesn’t mean they have to be all _condescending_ about it.

This all to say that, when he first enters the NYC basement complex in which his human target resided and finds it in the midst of an action movie showdown between at least a dozen criminals with guns and one clearly battered Spider-Man, Wade does not find himself terribly inclined to help Spider-Man. Sure, the kid has quite evidently gotten in over his head, but that is his problem, not Wade’s. That’s what happens when you go into an illegal smuggling den without a proper weapon like a little bitch. If Spider-Man had just thought to stick an automatic weapon or two in that red plastic-wrap he calls a suit this wouldn’t be a problem, and Wade wouldn’t have to get involved.

Unfortunately for Wade, it’s very hard to not get involved when one walks into a fifteen-to-one armed showdown wearing a Deadpool suit, carrying a bazooka in one hand and a sniper rifle in the other. Not his most subtle weapons, but he’d seen two possible ways the evening could go, and these two accounted for both. 

The entire room freezes at once; the man attempting to pistol-whip Spider-Man upside the jaw misses and drops his gun in surprise, and Spider-Man falters halfway through webbing a man’s legs together in surprise. As silences go, Wade’s been in some pretty awkward ones, and this surpasses them all.

“Hey there, fellas,” he says loudly, in an attempt to break said silence, and grins. At once, every gun in the room is turned from Spider-Man to him. He scans their faces and spots his mark standing near the back of the room, one hand over a black eye and the other holding a rifle. He grins, hefts his bazooka, aims, and falters.

There is a very simple solution before him at this moment. He fires the bazooka, kills everyone in the room, mark included, and aside from perhaps some temporary organ damage from the explosion, gets out without a scratch. He’ll avoid the pain in the ass that will be fistfighting every person in the room, getting shot fifteen times, and then webbed to a wall by Spider-Man like a common criminal once the ordeal is over. In any other situation, he would pull the trigger without a second thought. He’s done research on this particular branch of villainy, and is fairly certain that every member is complicit in the types of criminal activity that even Wade finds beyond distasteful. Their deaths wouldn’t even leave a scratch in Wade’s crumbling morality.

But Spider-Man. Spider-Man is a criminal, sure, and would probably be insufferable beyond belief if Wade knew anything about him, but right now he’s just a kid standing in a room with a bunch of guns and a bloodstained suit and there’s something in the way he’s standing that makes Wade suspect a gunshot wound, and god dammit. God-fucking-dammit. 

The tension in the room is unbelievable for the five seconds of eternity it takes Wade to make up his mind. His finger brushes against the trigger, and every set of eyes in the room is on him, and a dozen hands are trembling on the handles of their guns, and Spider-Man is standing so stock still he’s not even trembling, and the fear is so thick Wade can smell it in the air.

Wade, with a heavy sigh, sets down the bazooka.

Everything moves at once. A half dozen bullets embed themselves in the dusty wall behind Wade, sending puffs of white chalky plaster into the air, and he drops to the ground fast enough to only get shot three or four times. He pats at his belt, but the only other weapon is the sniper-rifle, so he hoists it up with a grunt and starts firing at random around the room. It’s not meant for close combat, but it’s not a goddamn bazooka, which is something. Within a few seconds, a few of the criminals have dropped to the ground clutching gunshot wounds and a great deal more have toppled over with white spiderwebs entangling their extremities. Spider-Man is full-throttle now, no longer looking exhausted and near-dropping, as he had when Wade had entered. Something about the interruption has turned the tides of the war, and he’s whizzing around the room, jumping from wall to wall, taking down anyone who dares venture close. It’s dizzying to watch, so Wade ignores it and focuses on shooting anyone he can get a clear aim on. 

Two, three minutes pass; the chaos becomes subdued, the layer of bodies on the floor thickens. Most of them are struggling against their bonds, cries muffled by the spiderwebs around their mouths. Spider-Man knocks unconscious the last criminal standing by punching her upside the chin, then makes a whining noise and shakes out his hand in apparent pain. 

“Daddy Stark not teach you to punch properly?” Wade asks sympathetically, scanning the room for the mark he’d been sent to kill. He spots the man webbed up near a corner, eyes fixed on Wade, thrashing and struggling. Wade hefts his gun and advances.

Spider-Man sounds irritated when he responds, too focused on his hand to look at Wade. “Tony’s not my _father_ , and I know how to punch someone, that lady just had a jaw like freaking steel.”

“I have a solution for you, hunny-bunchkins, it’s called _PROPER WEAPONRY_ and it’s the only way you’ll ever survive the hellscape that is the NYC vigilante gossip circle.” Wade stops before his mark, lifts the sniper rifle, aims. The mark thrashes harder. Sweat is trickling from his hairline. His eyes are crazed.

“You’re one to talk, whoever you are, showing up to a firefight with a bazooka and a sniper rifle,” Spider-Man says indignantly, and glances up from his hand to see what Wade’s about to do. “Hey, what - woah, what the fuck-”

Wade has just tightened his finger on the trigger when spiderwebs wrap around his hands. The gun is pried, roughly, from his grip, and the shot fired harmlessly into the wall. Spider-Man yanks the gun backwards into his hands, where he holds it awkwardly for a moment, with the air of someone holding very delicate rare china, then sets it gently on the ground.

“Motherfucker!” Wade exclaims. “Give that back -” He glances around in search of a handgun, or any gun, to use, before Spider-Man can prevent his finishing the job. He’s too slow. Spider-Man leaps over a pile of mostly-unconscious bodies, lands behind Wade, and grabs him by the wrists.

In terms of physical strength, Wade is frankly top-notch; he could probably lift the Captain America shield, if Cap would ever give him the chance. This doesn’t matter when faced by the freakishly significant strength of a wounded teenage boy’s moral superiority. Spider-Man pins his wrists behind his back, wraps them in an unnecessarily thick layer of webbing, then wraps his arms to his sides and his ankles together and drops him to the floor, where he stands over him with his arms folded over his chest and manages to look remarkably cross for a boy wearing a full face mask.

“The hell?” Wade demands. “I show up to a dozen-to-one firefight, save your ass from certain death when I could very well have saved myself the trouble with a bazooka, and this is your gratitude? Bitch-ass-motherfucker -”

“Sorry,” Spider-Man apologizes. “I’m grateful, really, but I can’t let you murder anyone.” He sounds genuinely sympathetic, but makes no move to set Wade free. Instead, he turns his back and walks - limps, actually, for good reason guessing from the blood staining his left suit leg - back to where he was standing before. He crouches by one of the unconscious men and pats around at the guy’s belt for a moment before finding and withdrawing a phone. 

He calls the police, rattles off an address and asks for an entourage of ambulances and patrol cars. Keeps it short, doesn’t give a name, hangs up as soon as the information has been delivered. Wade has to wriggle, worm-like, in order to shift well enough to get a good view. 

Phone call made, Spider-Man discards the phone and starts checking the pulses of the criminals scattered around him. Wade groans. “Are you actually seriously going to get me arrested like an asshole?”

“Not if none of them are dead,” Spider-Man says absently. “I mean, you did save my life, so I guess I owe you that much. None of them _look_ dead, but I want to make sure before we leave.”

“You know, I gave you the benefit of the doubt just now, but turns out you’re just as insufferably superior as the rest of the ass-hats you work with,” Wade fumes, trying to wriggle out of the spiderwebs and failing miserably. He tries to get close enough to a gun to grab it by flopping across the floor like a worm. Spider-Man pauses in taking someone’s pulse to kick the gun away, then moves on.

“I’m sorry I gave you a bad impression,” Spider-Man says sympathetically. “I think you’re being unfair, though.” 

Wade bangs his head against the floor three times in quick succession in hopes that the ringing in his ears will block out Spider-Man’s insufferably reasonable voice. The attempt being unsuccessful, he elects to ignore Spider-Man by talking over his attempts at communication.

“I have a reputation to uphold, you know, as a mercenary who doesn’t lose his marks to bitchy little super-children. I should’ve shot you when I had the chance. Imagine how that would look on my record. _Deadpool, killer of Spiderman._ God, that would’ve been fantastic.”

“You’re Deadpool?” Spider-Man asks from somewhere behind Wade’s head, sounding surprised.

“You didn’t recognize me?” Wade asks, caught off guard with genuine disappointment. 

“Sorry,” Spider-Man says again. “But I’ve heard of you. Double-D warned me to stay away from people like you and Frank Castle.”

“Pshht,” Wade snorts. “Frank Castle doesn’t hurt kids. Frank Castle hunts down people who hurt kids and strips their skin from their bones in little strips. Who’s this Double-D and what else have they said about me?”

“Daredevil,” Spider-Man says, and he sounds closer now. “He said that and also that Natasha Romanoff told him you’re not as dangerous as you could be because anyone who listens properly hears you prattling on a mile away.”

“Black Widow knows my name?” Wade’s so busy being gratified he forgets to be offended.

Spider-Man smoothly changes the subject. “I finished checking, and everyone’s okay,” he says, with the air of someone who thinks he’s being reassuring. 

“I wouldn’t say _okay_ , exactly,” Wade says. He’s at eye level with a puddle of blood issuing from a nearby man’s arm wound.

“Alive,” Spider-Man corrects, walking up to stand next to Wade. 

“Because God forbid a crew of literal murderers die.”

“I’m going to pick you up now.”

“What?” Wade asks, alarmed. Before he can inquire further, Spider-Man has crouched down and picked Wade up bridal-style, with all the ease of someone picking up a newborn kitten. Wade makes a noise of indignation and tries to wriggle out of Spider-Man’s arms. The effort is fruitless; Spider-Man just tightens his grip.

“I’m taking us up to the roof,” Spider-Man explains. He starts walking towards the door. “Police should be here soon, and I need to be out of here.”

“What you’re saying is that you’re going to ditch me, your savior, on some NYC rooftop,” Wade says flatly, unimpressed. 

It’s hard to see where they are exactly with Wade’s head dangling over Spider-Man’s arm, giving him only an upside-down view of the wall, but the light changes and he guesses they’re in a stairwell. He can feel Spider-Man limping as he climbs.

“I’ll let you go first,” Spider-Man corrects. “But frankly, from what I’ve heard of you you’re lucky I’m not turning you into the police.”

“No, you’re just turning my _mark_ into the police. Alive.”

Instead of apologizing, Spider-Man turns and opens the door at the top of the stairwell with his back. They emerge onto a concrete roof, and he at last sets Wade down near the edge before sitting down and dangling his feet over the edge.

Wade rolls over so he’s facing Spider-Man and catches a glimpse of city sky; all ashen buildings against a horizon streaked by pale red that fades to gray clouds. The air smells of gasoline and cigarette smoke, and traffic is audible from the ground, two or three stories down.

Spider-Man pulls his injured leg up onto the other and holds his hands over the wound awkwardly, looking like he’s not sure what to do. It doesn’t look as bad as Wade had suspected earlier; it must not be, if Spider-Man had climbed all those stairs. Wade knows how to treat a wound like that, but it doesn’t seem dire enough for him to go ahead and offer help to a sworn enemy.

“Imagine getting wounded for longer than ten minutes at a time,” he drawls. “Must be a pain.” And already, he can feel the skin around his own bullet wounds knitting together, healing. It itches, and he wriggles a little against the spider-webs.

“They’ll heal quickly,” Spider-Man says, but he sounds uncertain.

There is a long moment of intensely awkward silence. Wade grows increasingly uncomfortable. He eyes the edge of the rooftop, and then Spider-Man, and then the edge of the rooftop again, and then tries to rationally think over the pros and cons of doing something very stupid to escape another five minutes of truly unbearable pauses in conversation. Rationally thinking, it turns out, hurts his brain.

He rolls off the rooftop. 

  
  



	2. Chapter Two

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cold bites his bones and he lets himself sink.

Wade gets a call not more than a week later setting him on the trail of Spider-Man’s very own Daredevil. At first, he figures the job will be more trouble than it’s worth - how much value could he put on his long-standing vow not to get mixed up in superhero shit? He resolves not to get involved.

That resolve doesn’t last long. 

More specifically, that resolve spontaneously combusts at the moment Wade sees the series of zeros tagging the end of the promised final payment. Even the advance payment delivered to his bank accounts is enough to turn his suit eyes into cartoon hearts. It’s easily the best offer he’s gotten all year. Daredevil, whoever he may be, seems to be excel at making rich enemies.

Wade starts with some brief research. More specifically, he starts with a scanned wikipedia page and a few sensationalist news articles, all of which lose his attention after minute or two. Most of the articles were from a year or so ago; apparently Daredevil had been a prime figure in the shitshow that was Wilson Fisk’s brief vy for mayor, and it was because of his success in shutting down this criminal venture that he was practically worshipped by most of Hell’s Kitchen. Some of the newspaper articles on him seemed one step short of drawing pentagrams and sacrificing lambs in his honor. 

All the same to Wade. Let false idols be smashed and fake gods slaughtered; as long as he gets a good payday at the end of the job, Wade doesn’t give a shit.

That isn’t true.

Wade wishes quite badly that he didn’t give a shit, but the truth is that for reasons he’d managed to mostly chalk up to just a generally manic personality in the eyes of the public, he turned down over half the jobs he was offered. As ashamed as he is to admit it, a few small fragments of human decency had survived the cancer and torture and loss that had shattered all the rest of Wade’s soul. These fragments sit uncomfortably in his heart and jab him painfully whenever he does something excessively immoral. As with any chronic ailment, Wade has learned to work around the pain.

In the case of this particular job, Wade doubts he’ll have many qualms about the assassination. This Daredevil guy seems like a bit of an asshole. He’s got the over dramatic attention seeking vigilante thing down pat with the red suit, themed name, and horned helmet, and Wade is indignant. Daredevil’s coming for the Deadpool schtick. Can only have so many attention seeking red-suited superhumans with illegal hobbies before the writers decide they need a character cut, and goddammit, Wade’s not going to let himself be another one of Marvel’s redshirts.

...Fuck. He needs a new suit color.

  
  


It only takes Wade two nights of scouting to find Daredevil. When Wade spots him, he’s skulking in a Hell’s Kitchen alley like a raggedy stray cat, standing over the immobile form of some unlucky wrongdoer. He has no tail to puff, but Wade imagines if he did it would be full bottlebrush; as it is, his breathing is heavy with the aftershocks of a fight. His shoulders sag, and gone is the proud and rigid form of a soldier that had been plastered over so many newspaper columns. He looks tired.

Wade steps into the shadowed end of the alley, gun in hand. He’s careful, quiet, certainly not loud enough to warrant detection. Daredevil’s facing the other way. Wade lifts his gun and, ever so quiet, clicks the safety off.

From Daredevil’s reaction, you’d think the sound was a gunshot. He dives to the side a half of a second before Wade fires, stumbling into some trash cans, and breaks into a sprint towards Wade. He’s a moving target, figure hard to parse through the alley’s darkness. Wade aims again, fires, and the shot barely grazes Daredevil’s shoulder. He stumbles mid-sprint with a quiet  _ oomph _ of pain and then, just as quickly, dives at Wade and tackles him.

They hit the ground hard. Wade grunts and feels his ankle twist under him, feels his shoulders burn against the hard ground, the blow loosening his grip on the gun. Daredevil rips the weapon from him and Wade braces for a gunshot, but instead Daredevil clicks the safety back on and pistol-whips Wade in the temple. Wade’s head snaps back so hard he feels something in his neck snap. His wrists are pinned. Daredevil hits him again, again, and the eyes of the suit must be obscured, or else the world is fading, and everything is too loud and too quiet all at once, and Wade lets everything slip away.

Wade wakes up to a killer headache and the sound of sirens. He would guess these two are related, but the sensation of throbbing pain from his chin and temple tells him he might be recovering from a dozen or two major frontal lobe concussions.

He opens his eyes and is greeted by flashing blue light accompanied by skidding of tires, as what seems to be a police car pulls up to the curb. Wade’s unwillingness to move is instantly replaced by pure adrenaline; he sits bolt upright, looks over at the blinding azure light that is the police car, and scrambles to his feet. A brief glance around tells him his gun is gone. 

The sirens quiet. A cop, getting out of the police car, holds his gun aloft and shouts something.

Wade makes a run for it.

  
  
  


Wade makes a second attempt a week later. Rather than track Daredevil down in an alley again and risk near arrest, he puts out feelers, testing the criminal landscape of Hell’s Kitchen in an attempt to predict what fights Daredevil might face next.

The first thing he learns of is a criminal setup in a building basement. It’s the sort of thing that seems poorly set up from the moment Wade encounters it, and an educated guess that it won’t take more than a few weeks for Daredevil to track it down is proved accurate when he looks up one day from polishing one of his pistols to spot a shadowed figure emerging onto the building’s roof access.

He recognizes it by the horns. The stupid, goddamn horns. Wade shifts down to lay by his sniper rifle. The movement causes the grate of the fire escape he’s sprawled across to dig into his ribs painfully. He’s been perched on this fire escape for three nights straight now; the owners are on vacation and it’s got a clear view of the roof opposite. He’s cast into thorough shadow by the building looming behind him, making it impossible for him to be spotted from the street that’s three, four stories down. It’s been a very long three nights.

Daredevil, on the rooftop, kicks the door closed behind him and stumbles forward a few paces before resting his hands on his knees. He looks like he’s out of breath. As Wade watches, he brings his hand up to wipe something from his chin. Blood, probably.

Wade presses his eye to the scope of the rifle and carefully shifts the aim. He lines the barrel up with the curve of Daredevil’s helmet, right between the horns, and takes a deep breath to steady his hand.

The movement nudges the empty pistol that’s laying next to him, and before Wade can snatch it from the air, it slips between the bars and plunges down to land on the fire escape below with a crash. Wade curses, squinting down at where it’s perched precariously on the metal grid, and then returns his attention to the rifle scope.

Daredevil is looking directly at Wade. The hollow of his helmet eyes, barely visible from across the street, are pinned to the barrel of the sniper rifle. He steps, very carefully, to the side of the rifle’s line of fire, only to come to a halt at the edge of the roof.

“Fuck,” Wade hisses, and realigns the aim of the rifle. He does know how the hell Daredevil can see him through the thick shadow of the unlit building, nor how he knew to look in the first place. Wade finds the red of Daredevil’s helmet once again, and holds his fingers still as he prepares to shoot.

A moment later and Daredevil’s gone. Wade jerks his eye away from the rifle scope just in time to spot Daredevil falling backwards over the edge of the roof.

“Bastard jumped,” Wade whispers to himself, watching the rooftop with an admiring kind of fury.

The next day, around noon, Wade gets a text from his employer. He’s lounging in his apartment, eating ramen and throwing knives at the wall, when his phone buzzes, and he fumbles in the middle of a toss and accidentally impales his kitchen table. He’s cursing loudly as he pulls up his texts.

**$$$$$$$$:** Status?

_ Few more days _ , Wade responds.

A few moments later another text arrives. It’s an address, that of a manufacturing warehouse on the edge of the Hudson.

**$$$$$$$$:** Midnight. Be there. 

Wade blinks at his phone. Frowns.

**Wade** : Care to elaborate hun?

**$$$$$$$$:** Be there.

Wade glances at the clock. Twelve hours of warning isn’t that bad; enough time to scout things out, get together some weapons, scout ahead. It could be a trap. It probably is a trap. Most things in Wade’s life turn out to be traps. But the string of 0s on the end of Wade’s advance payment makes a very convincing argument in favor of attending the event.

  
  


He arrives at the warehouse thirty minutes early. His plan was to stake out a spot in the rafter somewhere, settle in, get a scope of the surroundings. Instead, he shows up to find the warehouse unlocked and clearly abandoned, filled with stacks of crates holding god-knows-what that arch towards the distant rafters, sending shadows across the already darkened metal floors. The windows, high above, let in faint whisps of moonlight, and a snatches of the horizon view above the river. 

When Wade first steps through the unlocked side door, he finds himself in a long alley between towering stacks crates. A dust hovers across every surface, some of it glinting faintly in the light, and the room is so quiet that Wade’s first impression is that he’s alone in the building. He quietly walks through a few of the hallways, footsteps carefully kept silent, before a sound drifts from between the crates and stops him short.

Someone is breathing on the other end of the warehouse. He can hear that, but nothing else - no footsteps, words, clanking of weaponry. Wade checks the time on his phone. It’s half an hour to midnight. Whoever’s waiting for him on the other end of the warehouse, he’d rather see them before they see him. Glancing around him, he spots an area on the wall to his left crossed by metal pipes bolted to the wall, and tests their firmness to find them sturdily fixed in place. He scales the wall, using bricks and piping and the window ledge, and manages to pull himself onto the top of a stack of crates, fifteen or so feet in the air, where he can get a clearer vantage point.

The warehouse is spread out around him, all deep shadows and the metallic glint of moonlight on metal flooring. The sound of breathing is fainter from that distance, but remembering from where he heard it, Wade scans the opposite side of the building and spots the source of the noise.

A figure is sitting in a chair in the hallway between the two halves of the warehouse, facing the open bay doors, which are fifteen or so feet away and grant a clear view of the harbor off the riverfront. The figure isn’t moving; it’s just sitting there, head sagged forward, a black silhouette. 

Wade glances up at the distant rafters of the rooftop and then around the room for some kind of maintenance ladder. He spots it not too far away, hidden behind another stack of crates. Edging to the corner of his own stack, he climbs down the way he came up - through cold metal pipes and window-ledges - and lands with a quiet thump on the floor. 

Still keeping his footsteps quiet, Wade slips across the the black tiled floors to the maintenance ladder and starts to climb. 

It’s at least twenty-five feet, and even Wade is tired by the time he reaches the ceiling; but the rafters are only a few feet above him, and by stretching out one hand he catches one and tugs himself up onto it with a quiet huff. It’s not a comfortable seat, too thin for Wade to be entirely sure of his safety there, but he rests one hand on the ceiling pole and sits carefully, legs dangling over the ledge, free hand resting on the gun at his belt. The figure is closer now, if a good twenty five feet below, and shifting lights have cast it into clearer view.

It’s a man, and he’s not sitting in a chair. He’s  _ tied _ to a chair, bound and gagged, blond hair falling into his face as his head sags forward. His echoing breaths are too quick, too rapid and anxious, for him to actually be asleep, and as Wade watches, he tips his head back to stare at the ceiling. He doesn’t notice Wade through the deep shadows into which the ceiling is cast, but Wade stills very still all the same, examining the man’s face. 

It’s clear that whoever this is, he isn’t Daredevil. His jaw is too round, too cleanly shaven; he couldn’t look more different from the grizzled, sharp corners of what parts of Daredevil’s jawline are visible under the cowl. His eyes scan across the ceiling for a moment, then flick closed.

As Wade sits in waiting, the shadows slowly shift across the warehouse, and he rests his face against the rafter. The numbers on his phone tick by slowly and midnight approaches.

At approximately 11:55 or so, he hears a noise from outside the bay doors that isn’t quiet traffic or the roaring of wind across the river. It’s footsteps. Wade straightens from his slump and fixes his gaze on the open doors right as a silhouette appears between them. Wade can tell by the twin peaks of those dipshit helmet ear-horns that it’s Daredevil. And he’s early. The bastard.

Wade lifts his gun from where he’s left it laying on his lap and lifts it to aim. Logically, he should probably shoot now, blast Daredevil’s stupid-ass fucking helmet off his shoulders before he has a chance to spot Wade’s hiding spot, but for some reason he pauses halfway through aiming to see what Daredevil does next.

And that’s to dive for the man in the chair, dropping to his knees and practically skidding into him, and frantically start speaking to him in low, hushed tones. The words echo louder than intended, and Wade hears every word.

“Foggy.  _ Foggy.  _ Are you okay? Do you need a medic? Are you alright?” He sounds almost frantic, but there’s something in his urgency here that’s infinitely more gentle than the harsh tones he had taken with Wade in their previous encounter. He reaches up and undoes the knot of the gag, then tosses away the fabric

“I’m fine,” The man - Foggy - says, after a bout of coughing. “I’m fine. I’m okay. Oh my god, I’m actually okay. Oh my god. Please get me out of here. Get me out of here.”

Daredevil pulls a small knife from his belt and cuts free the bonds tying the man’s legs, then his arms. He flips his knife shut and stows it in his pocket again. Wade clicks the safety of his gun off quietly.

Daredevil, still kneeling, remains where he is for a half a moment, looking at where he’s just shoved his knife, then glances up at Foggy.

“I don’t get it,” Foggy says. “What is this place? Matt-”

“Sent me here,” Daredevil interrupts, his voice sounding lower and harsher than it was before. “Matt told me you were in trouble, so I came. Can you stand?”

Foggy is silent for a moment, staring at Daredevil, and then closes his mouth and nods. Daredevil gets to his feet and holds his hand out to Foggy, then pulls him to his feet. 

Foggy sways for a moment and then straightens. Daredevil gives him a gentle push towards the bay doors. “You first.”

Foggy takes a few steps forward, reaching the light cast by the doors, then glances around. Daredevil’s standing in the same place, making no moves to follow. Wade takes aim.

“Foggy,” Daredevil says quietly, stock-still, “ _ you go first.” _

Foggy stares at him for a long moment, a series of emotions flickering across his face, then takes a few steps forward and leaves the warehouse.

Wade is caught - once again - in the hairs-breadth of time between aiming and firing, his finger brushing the trigger, aim carefully steady- when Daredevil makes a sudden movement and dives out of view and of aim, slipping into the shadows between a stack of crates, where Wade can no longer see him. 

Wade scrambles up into a standing position on the rafter and hits his head violently on the ceiling. He groans loudly - giving away his position- and hunches over, clutching his head in pain. Somewhere else, there is the sound of footsteps and the clanging of pipes, and when Wade straightens, Daredevil is perched on a stack of crates across the room, in a crouch.

“Motherfucker,” Wade mutters, twenty minute’s worth of stifled words threatening to spill forth as his silence was lifted. “How the hell did you even get there that quickly? Mind-fuckery, that’s how, you cocky little bastard gremlin man.”

He glances around the warehouse below him, doing calculations. Daredevil is drawing his baton ropes from his belt, likely preparing to join Wade in the rafters. Wade’s mind does a flashback to Spider-Man whipping about the ceiling of that basement like gravity was nothing, and he realizes that with an agility-based superhero like Daredevil, the last place he wants to be is a rafter. He glances at the stack of crates below him, slips his gun into his belt, and grabs the rafter with his hands, swinging around so he’s hanging from the bar by both arms and dangling above the crates.

The drop causes a shooting pain to course up his ankle, but he ignores that in favor of staggering towards the wall and dropping onto the maintenance ladder. The climb is short - cut short either way by Wade’s dropping into freefall for the last ten feet - and when Wade reaches solid ground, he turns to see Daredevil perched on the edge of the crate stack on the opposite side of the warehouse, moving to jump across to Wade’s side of the warehouse. His jaw is firmly set, clearly defined even as his face is obscured by darkness. His crouched position resembles that of a cat - a predator, all coiled muscles ready to spring, feet digging into the crate as if clawed.

Wade limps out from behind the stack into the empty center walkway right as Daredevil lands with a thump on the stack behind him, having swung across the empty space with his batons. The bay doors are right there, and with them, the harbor; an empty area, free of crates and other playthings for Daredevil to swing around on. Wade makes a run for it.

There is a bright flash of artificial LED lights as the metal harbor is cast into brightness by overhead security lights. To Wade’s left is a stretch of empty loading bay edged by parking lot, and to his right is dull blackness of the Hudson, audibly roaring, shielded from access by a rail so short it barely comes up to Wade’s knee. Wade skids to a halt ten or so feet from the doors and swivels around, hoisting his gun up and waiting for Daredevil’s appearance.

He waits for fifteen full seconds before there’s a distant crashing of broken glass from the left side of the warehouse, coming from somewhere Wade can’t see. Next there’s a scuffling noise, and then footsteps, and Wade realizes too late that Daredevil isn’t coming at him from the bay doors, but from around the wall of the warehouse far to his left, at full sprint. And for the second time in two weeks, Daredevil tackles Wade full sprint and slams him into the pavement.

Wade shoots Daredevil in the lower thigh, but his aim is a bit off from that he can’t see anything but Daredevil’s shoulders and head, looming above him, and evidently he doesn’t land a very good shot, because while Daredevil’s whole body flinches, hands digging into Wade’s shoulders in evident pain, he doesn’t even roll off to tend his wounds. Instead he grabs Wade’s wrist and squeezes it until Wade drops the gun, then picks the weapon up and hurls it into the Hudson.

_ I really need to stop getting tackled like this, _ Wade thinks doozily, as Daredevil seizes the knob of fabric at the top of the Deadpool mask and uses it to slam Wade’s head into the concrete several times. Then he brings his arm down to rest his elbow on Wade’s neck and digs in, cutting off Wade’s air supply. His face is much closer now, and if Wade could only get his eyes to focus - if he could only see clearly through the haze - he might be able to get a proper look at Daredevil’s features again. The man’s eyes are totally black. Wade’s not even sure the mask has holes for them. His hand is pinning Wade’s gun hand to the concrete, and his knees on either side of Wade’s torso. Everything begins to grow hazy, but as Daredevil speaks, something in his voice cuts through the fog. He sounds beyond just furious. He’s livid, he’s  _ enraged _ . The image of a coiled predator lying in careful wait that his position had conjured in the warehouse is gone, replaced by all the sheer unbridled fury of a beast at bay.

“Tell me who you work for,” Daredevil snarls, shoving his mask into Wade’s personal space. His voice is so angry it feels as though it is rattling Wade to his core. “Tell me who sent you.”

Wade still can’t breathe. Every passing second throws his mind further into drowning. His body is curiously numb - except for his twisted ankle, where he can feel a faint thrumming heat as the tendons knit themselves back together. Healing. He struggles weakly.

“What do you want with Foggy,” Daredevil snarls. “ _ Answer me _ . What. Do. You. Want. With. Foggy.”

Wade’s eyes start to drift closed. Daredevil, noticing the way Wade’s head is sagging, lifts his arm somewhat off Wade’s windpipe and brings his free hand up to slap Wade into consciousness again. The burst of pain - combined with air rushing back into Wade’s lungs - does the trick, and his vision returns to focus. He struggles again, this time more avidly, and brings his knee up sharply between Daredevil’s legs.

Daredevil grunts in pain and Wade takes advantage of his distraction to shove him aside, tugging his legs free and scrabbling backwards. Daredevil sits there, hunched, for a moment, before starting to stagger to his feet. His leg is bleeding badly. As Wade starts to back away, he tries to follow, but he’s limping so badly his progress is slowed. 

Wade glances behind him, at the river harbor, and then at the seemingly infinite expanse of loading bay and parking lot on the other end, and makes a quick decision that is either a very good one or a terrible one. Backing up to the railing, he fixes Daredevil with a stare through the mask, and blows him a kiss.

Then Wade falls backwards - into the river, into the churning blackness.

Cold bites his bones and he lets himself sink. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A disclaimer:  
> I don't know how guns, warehouses, killer-for-hire employers, or New York City work. If i've portrayed all of those incorrectly in this chapter, just be thankful I'm not writing math textbooks. 
> 
> Hope y'all enjoyed reading. Comments are always appreciated.


	3. Chapter Three

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rule number eight: Three strikes, you’re out.

Wade has rules. A list of them; messily assembled, by no means comprehensive - it’s far from a perfect guideline, but years of doing one of the most dangerous jobs in the world has given him plenty of experiences to learn from, and, more importantly, avoid repeating. He may have a mind so utterly lacking in common sense that he’s burned down three apartment kitchens microwaving the wrong kinds of containers, but even he knows better than to ever, _ever_ , violate any of the rules on his memorized list again.

This isn’t to say that he doesn’t break said rules on a regular basis, but it’s a bit of a Schrodinger’s Cat situation: it only counts as breaking them if he remembers their existence. (Wade’s never read up on Schrodinger’s Cat, but he figures it applies.)

List items one through seven are field tips on the topic of not going down in the midst of the action. Prepping guns properly, never aiming for extremities, finishing the goddamn job instead of waiting for the target to pop up again five months later all Darth Vader style and go batshit crazy searching for ‘revenge’. All your basics, really.

List items nine through twelve are more on the topic of living in secrecy - never revealing his civilian identity to anyone, lest his civilian cover of Wade Wilson be exposed in connection to his day job; not taking apartments anywhere too decent, lest people start to pay attention to all the odd bloodstains; not getting close to civilians, lest they become one of the odd bloodstains.

But it’s rule number eight that’s lurking in the back of Wade’s quickly fading consciousness as he plunges through the inky blackness of the Hudson River and spots the distant silhouette of Daredevil, standing on the ledge far above, his form rippling and fading in the moonlight filtering through the river. Blood is dripping into the river from the silhouette’s wounded leg. It’s the coldest Wade’s been since he visited Alaska and got stuck in a snowmount. It’s the tiredest he’s been for as long as he can remember. Rule number eight hasn’t been relevant for years, not since the bungled mission near the start of his career that had cemented the rule a place in the sacred list. 

Rule number eight: Three strikes, you’re out.

Three bungled missions, three failed hits, and your strategy isn’t working. Get it together, you rat bastard, or before you know it the goddamn Taskmaster will be giving you a fight for your throne. Aren’t you the best damn killer-for-hire in all of North America? All of the goddamn world? Does it really matter anyway? You’ve got a reputation to uphold, and - as good as they say or just a damn lucky shot, you better not lose it now. Come too far for that. New strategy, Wilson. New approach. Let’s try this job a different way; something a bit more intimate, perhaps? Oh, don’t look at me like that - I’m only your inner consciousness come to play. Not that you have much consciousness to go around right now, Wilson, sinking to the bottom of a goddamned river, alert the captain, oxygen supplies dangerously low - atmosphere dangerously cold - water dangerously dark, the light fading, and upwards is dangerously uncertain - lots of dangerouslies to go around these days, aren’t there - what was your plan here, anyway? To get yourself fucking drowned at the bottom of a river? Hun, you’ve gone this route before, and if all those packs of cyanide didn’t do the trick I don’t think the river sharks will manage it. Hold up, do river sharks exist? Siri, do river sharks - ah, goddamnit. I’ll bet your phone’s shot to hell, you know. This is what you get for not investing in a waterproof case, like I warned you to. I’ve warned you to do a lot of things, Wilson, but do you listen? Not a chance. Not a goddamn - aaand we’re out. Oxygen supplies depleted, systems in shut-down. It’s been a hell of a ride, captain, a real honor.

  
  
  


Wade wakes on the riverbank, seawater sloshing in his lungs, salt crusted in his ears, suit faded and blanched. He rips his mask off and vomits half the Hudson River onto the algae-ridden rocks upon which he’s sprawled, then flops over and stares directly into the sun. 

It doesn’t matter how long he gazes into the brilliant glow of what looks like a noon-time sun. He can’t help to feel as though the chill of water is still there, cradling his body as he sinks. Little flashes of what was running through his mind as he fell keep coming back to him. Something about river sharks? He remembers seeing a trickle of Daredevil’s blood trickle down the barrier into the river water, right as Wade was sinking below the surface. He remembers -

Rule number eight.

“Motherfucker,” Wade says to the noonday sun. It doesn’t respond. He staggers to his feet and kicks a crab off his foot. “Moootherfucker. If I hadn’t spent all that money on selling those goddamn Scott Summers blowup dolls on EBay, I’d almost be tempted to say this motherfucking job isn’t worth the trouble. It’s been years since I’ve had to use rule number eight. YEARS. This is a pain in the ass, you know that? Pain. In. The. Ass.”

The sun continues to give him the silent treatment. Wade staggers up the riverbank and pushes bodily through a thicket of bushes. Upon reaching the other side, he finds himself on the side of a mostly empty road. A few cars whisp by, and Wade catches glimpses of horrified faces at the appearance of a man in a dripping red suit standing on the side of the road. He waves cheerily.

Wade spots a car he likes - sports car, empty but for the driver, an older man with a scruffy beard - and wanders into the road to stop it in its tracks. It screeches to a halt, the driver looking both furious at the interruption and horrified at Wade’s appearance.

Wade strolls up to the window and raps on it. It rolls down a meager half of an inch and stops. He frowns, but plunges on regardless.

“Hey, buddy,” he asks, grinning a grin that the driver can’t see below the mask. “Sorry to ask, but I’m in a bit of a tight spot and could really use a ride back into the city. Think you could do a pal a favor?”

The man’s mouth opens and closes a few times. It reminds Wade of a fish grasping for food, a thought made all the more traumatic by recent events. He frowns.

“ _No!”_ The man finally bursts out. “Absolutely _not_ , who the hell even _are_ you, did you - did you _swim in the river?”_

“No need to remind me of that little fiasco,” Wade scolds. “It’s not a great memory, you know, and still a bit of a fresh wound. Bit of a low blow, if I’m being honest, really quite rude of you to point out. Come on now, buddy, let me in before I drip a new river onto the side of this road.”

“I said _no!_ Get away from my _car,_ you maniac!”

Wade tut-tutts in disappointment. He’d hoped not to resort to unkindly measures, but - well. He drops his hand to his belt, withdraws the pistol safely locked there, and draws it up into view of the car driver, dangling it between two fingers cheerily and raising an eyebrow.

The man stares at the weapon, face blanching. Wade taps on the window. Seeming to get the message, the driver clicks the car door unlocked.

Wade grins, pulls the door open, and dives inside. Slouching into the passenger seat and propping his feet on the dashboard, he turns to the driver and rattles off an address. 

It’s not the most morally upright way to get a drive, but, well - a man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do. 

  
  
  


Wade strips out of his waterlogged suit the moment he gets back to his apartment. It takes an hour or so in the shower to clean the sand lodged behind his ears, and a full case of ramen to wash the taste of bile and salt from his mouth. 

His recreational phone is thoroughly waterlogged, but as he settles onto his couch in preparation of a long evening, he finds his burner phone propped on the couch leg. It has four new messages.

**$$$$$:** Status?

**$$$$$:** Deadpool. Status. 

**$$$$$:** It’s been nearly nineteen hours and no word. I hope you have good news or else a good reason for not answering my texts.

**$$$$$:** Status?

  
  


Wade stares down at his phone for a long moment, chewing his lip, before rattling off a series of responses.

**Wade:** Okay, buddy, hold your horses there.

**Wade:** First off, status is alive, and _barely_. I don’t know what kind of stunt you were trying to pull in there, what with the kidnapping his friend, but next time you pull that shit? Tell me first. 

**Wade** : You probably were trying to help. Or maybe you have your own mission here. But bottom line is, don’t get me mixed up in shit without telling me. You hired me to do this job, so let _me_ do the job, without getting under my feet.

**Wade** : This is a pretty goddamn hard job, which I think you figured given the zeros on the end of that paycheck you promised. So look, I’m going to need a few more weeks. I’ll get the job done. It just needs some delicacy. I’ll do what I need to do and you’ll stay out from under my feet and at the end of the day we’ll all be happy and I’ll get back all the money I lost selling those goddamned Scott Summers dolls. Capiche?

Message sent, Wade stares at the pale light of the screen of a long moment. Dots appear at the bottom of the message list, then disappear. Then reappear. Then disappear. Then - 

**$$$$$:** Understood.

**$$$$$:** You have three weeks.

  
  


Wade breathes a heavy sigh and sits back into the couch, tossing the phone aside. His computer is sitting on the table, and he props it open and pulls up a new - empty - document. Step one of his new and revised plan for success at killing Daredevil? Research.

Wade doesn’t have much information, but he has enough to start things off. Mostly, a hell of a lotta news articles about Wilson Fisk. More importantly? Names, two of them: Foggy and Matt, the two traceable civilian identities that had supposedly been involved with the kidnapping. Foggy, the man who was kidnapped, and Matt, someone who - supposedly - had strong enough ties with Daredevil to call him up and request a rescue mission. There’s not much information online that comes up with those names alone, but when he tags ‘Daredevil’ to the end of the search bar, a slew of old articles come up from the Wilson Fisk fiasco years before.

None of them mention a ‘Foggy,’ but it only takes a few articles to track down a Matt. More specifically, Matt Murdock, a lawyer involved with the Wilson Fisk legal case who played an integral role in bringing the kingpin himself down.

Matt, one article says, is still employed as a lawyer at the law firm _Nelson, Murdock and Page_.

_Nelson, Murdock, and Page_ has a website. A spectacularly shitty website, barely functioning, with a bafflingly confusing layout given that for all the buttons, it really only has two properly working pages: a biography page that has only Karen Page’s biography filled out, along with poor quality pictures of the three partners - which he saves - and a _Contact Us_ page, which has an address to an office in Hell’s Kitchen.

Bingo.

Wade shows up on the doorstep of Nelson, Murdock, and Page the next morning in raggedy jeans, gloves, and a hoodie that’s pulled low over his face. It’s the first time in years he’s ventured into public properly attired as a civilian, and he feels itchy, exposed; barely resisting the urge to hide his scarred face behind his hands. He pushes it away. 

The _N, M & P _office isn’t half as fancy as Wade had expected. It’s shoddy, run-down, tucked away in the corner of some crappy old building where the air smells musty and the carpets are stained. The door is closed despite the office clearly being open, so Wade knocks. 

He has to wait a full thirty seconds before anyone answers, but at last, the door swings open. There’s a man on the other side, leaning casually on a white cane, with ruffled dark hair falling into his face and a shadow of scruff creeping across his jawline. His first expression is an amiable one, a faint but polite smile at the edges of his mouth, and by the time the door has finished swinging open, that has slipped away, and he’s fixing Wade with a look of cold calculation. His eyes keep drifting away to fix on something in the distance instead of at Wade’s head.

“I’m sorry,” Matt Murdock says, “Are we expecting you?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Me? Updating a fic quickly? What a shocking development.


	4. Four

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I ask again,” Murdock says, voice smooth. “Are we expecting you, sir?”
> 
> “Uh, no,” Wade says. “But-”
> 
> “Do you have an appointment?”
> 
> “I don’t, no-”
> 
> “Were you hoping to speak to my associates? They’re out, but I can leave a message-”
> 
> “Please don’t.”
> 
> “Are you selling something? Because I’m sorry, but we don’t take solicitors here-”
> 
> “Left all the good stuff at home, buddy, but if you’re looking for that sort of thing I know a guy-”
> 
> “Then perhaps you have the wrong office, and I can kindly point you in the direction of-”
> 
> “That won’t be necessary.”
> 
> There’s a long and nasty silence in which Murdock is clearly expecting Wade to make some sort
> 
> of admission, or else get the hell off his metaphorical porch. Wade doesn’t budge. 
> 
> “I see,” Murdock says, poison dripping from his voice. “Then can I help you?”
> 
> “Yes!” Wade says brightly. “You can, actually. I’m so glad you brought that up, because it’s exactly why I came here.”

Murdock doesn’t look pleased to see Wade. He doesn’t look pleased at all, frankly, more irritated at the interruption - although for a moment, Wade thinks he sees something oddly sharp in the other man’s expression, like a flash of anger or alarm; but it settles into cold politeness. Wade thinks he imagined it, then noticed that the hand not propping open the door is clenched on the cane so hard the knuckles are turning white.

Matt seems to notice him looking, because he slowly unclenches his hand from around the cane, forcibly relaxing, and then plasters on a smile.

“I ask again,” Murdock says, voice smooth. “Are we  _ expecting _ you, sir?”

“Uh, no,” Wade says. “But-”

“Do you have an appointment?”

“I don’t, no-”

“Were you hoping to speak to my associates? They’re out, but I can leave a message-”

“Please don’t.”

“Are you selling something? Because I’m sorry, but we don’t take solicitors here-”

“Left all the good stuff at home, buddy, but if you’re looking for that sort of thing I know a guy-”

“Then perhaps you have the wrong office, and I can kindly point you in the direction of-”

“That won’t be necessary.”

There’s a long and nasty silence in which Murdock is clearly expecting Wade to make some sort

of admission, or else get the hell off his metaphorical porch. Wade doesn’t budge. 

“I see,” Murdock says, poison dripping from his voice. “Then can I  _ help  _ you?”

“Yes!” Wade says brightly. “You can, actually. I’m so glad you brought that up, because it’s _exactly_ why I came here.”  
“Is it, now.”

“Uh-huh. Heard you were the business of doing that sort of thing. Unless I’m wrong, and you’d like to turn me away, cold and shivering, to rot in a gutter somewhere, dying a slow and painful death of sorrow and rejection-”

“There will be no need for that,” Murdock says, and at last, he steps aside, presenting the open doorway to Wade. “Please. Come in.”

“I thought you’d never ask,” Wade says sweetly, and steps inside.

It’s a small office, but cozy enough. There’s a small waiting room, complete with a tattered sofa and old magazines, and a main office with a receptionist’s desk that’s littered with trinkets and post-it notes. On either side of that, twin office rooms are visible through dusty glass panels. The lights are off, but natural sunlight drips like honey from the windows. Murdock leads Wade into one of the offices, holding the door open for him.

“You’ll have to excuse the lack of a welcome party,” Murdock says drily. He’s still not looking quite at Wade - his eyes aren’t focusing on anything in the room, just sort of drifting. It’s unnerving, and Wade’s not sure what to make of it. “My associates are...out for the week.”

“Sounds lonely,” Wade remarks. The office is some sort of small conference room, with a few chairs scattered about, and he leans forward onto the back of one to scrutinize the papers scattered across the table. “Just you, all alone in here, watching the dust settle?”

“Not quite, no,” Murdock responds. He lets the door close with a soft thump and picks something up from the table - a pair of red tinted glasses, which he unfolds and slides over his nose. Then he reaches over the table, hand brushing over the expanse of empty wood for a long moment before bumping against the papers. He smoothly sweeps them into a stack, turns, and sets them face-down on a cabinet near the window. 

Sunglasses indoors. The cane. Unfocused eyes. The way his hand hovered for a moment on the table, as if searching for something, before he swept up the papers.

_ Oh _ . 

“Huh,” Wade says. “Okay. Whatcha doing with those papers there, then?”

“Looking over some old files,” Murdock responds, still facing away. He seems to be thumbing 

through the stack, counting each paper individually. “Doing some detective work while my associates are away.  _ Trying _ to, anyway,” he adds, the words a resentful mutter.

“What sort of files are these?” Wade cranes his head to see over Murdock’s shoulder, but Murdock shifts at just the wrong moment and blocks his view.

“I’m sorry, are you here to talk about me?” Murdock asks sharply, finally setting down the stack and turning around. “I could be mistaken, but I believe that, as you so  _ vividly _ described to me, you are in desperate need of legal help. Is that incorrect? Because I do have things I could be doing, if your troubles have been alleviated-”

“Not getting rid of me that easy, doc,” Wade says, and grins his most winning smile before remembering that the effort is wasted on Murdock and letting the expression drop away. 

“Very well, then,” Murdock says, “Please. Take a seat. Make yourself right at home.” The sarcasm is practically palpable. Wade, ever the obliging hostee, takes a seat.

Murdock picks a small device from the cabinet. It’s black, with a big button and a speaker, and he clicks it before setting it on the table and taking a seat across from Wade. A light clicks on, and Wade realizes it’s a recorder.

“Alright,” Murdock says, angling his head toward Wade’s. “Your name?”

“Wade.”

“Full name.”

“Wade Wilson, if you insist, but you can call me Wadeykins, hun, no worries.”

“Age.”

“Now that’s hardly polite, sir, never ask a gentleman’s age.”

“Age.”

“Oh, thirty-something.”

“And why are you here?”

“Do we gotta do this with, uh,” Wade makes a gesture towards the recorder, and then almost bites his tongue off. “I mean. The recorder. Do we gotta do this with the recorder.”

“It’s protocol, Mr Wilson, and unless you have something to hide, I see no reason to neglect the office records.”

“Look, what I’m here about is pretty heavy stuff, buddy, I’d really appreciate a bit of privacy.”

“I assure you,” Matt responds, voice icy, “that we keep our records under the utmost secrecy for the privacy of our clients.”

“Is that what I am? A client?”

“That remains to be seen, Mr Wilson. Consider this your…elevator pitch.”

“Okay, but recorders off.”

“The recorder stays, sir,” Murdock respond, and his voice is once again laced with cold politeness, “or you don’t.”

Wade is silent for a moment. He’d figured that Murdock, of all people, would understand the importance of security with this sort of thing. He hadn’t bargained on  _ this _ . But no matter. He came, he saw, he’ll conquer. A record is a minor cause for concern, but nothing that can’t be solved later down the line with a crowbar or maybe a speck of arson here and there.

“...Okay,” Wade says. “Recorder stays.”

“I’m glad we agree.” Murdock crosses his arms and leans forward onto the table. “Mr Wilson, if you could please describe for the record why you saw fit to seek help at this office. In detail.”

“Okay,” Wade says, leaning back in the chair. “Okay. So it all started a week ago. It was a pretty normal day - a weekend, the kind where you wake up and it’s 1 PM and five minutes later it’s 8, right? You know the type? Like, you blink and the day is gone, and you’re back to your normal-ass week life with your soulsucking job and all - but I went to eat dinner and the fridge was empty, so I went down to the grocery a block from my apartment. It was one of those ratty little places that you think might be haunted or else have rats in the vents. But when I was walking back to apartment, as you do, carrying buncha eggs and milk in bags, some bagels, a few sticks of lettuce, butter, think I had some brownies in there too-”

“-Your point?”

“-hold your horses, buddy, lemme get to the good bit-”

“I simply would appreciate if this  _ comedy bit _ were sped up, Mr Wilson, but by all means, continue.”

“Okay, fine. Sheesh. Want me to give you the rundown? I’ll give you the rundown. I got out my wallet to put away my change and then I saw a guy being  _ murdered _ . In an alley. Stabbed, again and again and again, blood everywhere. And the guy who was doing it saw me, and I saw him, and. It was the weirdest fucking thing, man, like, he was wearing a mask and I couldn’t see his eyes but he was just  _ staring _ at me - and then I dropped my bags and my wallet and every single thing and just fucking booked it, man. Sprinted all the way home. And when I went back the next day the groceries were still there - I mean, the broken shit was, the rest were probably stolen, but my wallet was gone.”

Murdock’s face remains stoically calm, fingers tapping quietly on the table as he listens. His thoughts are inscrutable, face unnervingly still.

“So a few days pass,” Wade continues, leaning forward, “and  _ this _ is where it gets weird. Weird _ er.  _ See, I’m sitting at home on my couch, all alone, and my window shatters. There’s glass everywhere, and I try to get the broom but instead I cut my foot, so I go into the bathroom and spend like thirty minutes trying to pick the glass out and wrap it up. When I come out I can’t find anything by the window. I had no idea why it’d broken. And then, the next day, when I go outside, I get the feeling that someone’s following me. Like, this feeling on the back of my neck, as though I’m being watched, this suspicion that if I turn around there’ll be someone looking at me. And at first, I thought it was just my being paranoid, you know, maybe some trauma from the murder thing - but then I saw him.”

“Him?”

“Him,” Wade repeats. “The murderer. The guy in the mask. He was following me. Stalking me. All the time, man. Every time I turned around he was just staring at me. So I stopped being alone. Ever. For a few days I spent every waking moment somewhere public - stores, malls, nightclubs, sleeping wherever it took them the longest to kick me out. Until yesterday, when I finally went back to my apartment, doors locked and having bought a brand new security camera, and I...found something.”

Wade pauses for dramatic effect. Murdock raises an eyebrow, prompting him to continue.

“A bullet,” Wade elaborates. “Under the couch. And I realized...when the window broke, it wasn’t, like, a bird or anything. The guy was shooting at me. He was trying to  _ kill _ me. Like, shoot my brains out  _ in my own apartment _ .”

Wade falls silent, and there’s a long pause. Wade waits for some kind of reaction - a gasp, a look of horror, maybe fear - anything, anything at all. But Murdock just takes a breath, leans back in his chair, and crosses his arms.

“Quite a story,” he says, “but why is this relevant to  _ me _ , Mr Wilson? You are aware I usually handle criminals  _ after _ their arrest. Unless, of course, you were hoping I point you in the direction of the nearest police precinct, in which case you could have saved me rather a lot of time by stating as much.”

“Nuh-uh,” Wade says, waggling his finger at Murdock. “No police. You know as well as I do how that works out in the end.”

“Do I really, now?”

“Yup. So that’s not why I’m here.”

“It’s not.”

“No, it’s not. I’m here because you know a guy.”

“I know a lot of guys, Mr Wilson, you’ll need to be exact.”

Wade leans forward. He feels like he’s starting to really get into the role. “You. Know. A. Guy. You also know whom I’m talking about, hunny, so don’t  _ play dumb with me _ , or this little chat won’t end the way you  _ want _ , Murdock.”

“Is that a threat?” Murdock’s voice is cutting, expression quickly frosting over. Wade curses internally. He hadn’t meant to  _ threaten _ anyone; that wasn’t how this was supposed to go. It was just old habit. One two many days spent working a hellish job. He backtracked quickly, summoning an amicable smile. 

“Oh, never. All I mean to say is that I think you know who I’m talking about, Mr Murdock.”

“And all  _ I _ mean to say is that if you want my help you’re going to have to be a little bit more specific, Mr Wilson,” Murdock responds. His voice is dangerously soft. A tremor goes up Wade’s spine and he decides to cut to the chase.

“You know Daredevil, Murdock. And while you may not be in the business of handling criminals on the loose, I’m fairly sure he  _ is. _ ”

“What makes you so certain I know Daredevil?”

“It’s only plastered across, oh, I dunno, the month-old headlines of  _ every major news outlet in New York City.” _

Murdock leans onto the table again, clasping his hands in front of him. “Okay,” he says. “Say I agree to this. What do you want with Daredevil? To talk to him? Meet him? He’s not the sort of man to sign autographs, you know.”

“I think you underestimate my charms, Mr Murdock.”

“You know? I  _ really _ think I don’t.”

“Okay,” Wade says, crossing his arms and fixing Murdock with a steely stare. “Look, buddy. You know what? All I want is to go on being able to  _ live my goddamn life _ . Do you have any idea how hard it is to spend  _ weeks _ being chased, being pursued across the city by a literal fucking murderer? Someone who has no respect for basic human life? You can’t  _ possibly  _ understand.”

His theatrics seem to be lost on Murdock, who just listens to him with the same frosty expression as before. Wade waits for a reaction, but Murdock just raises an eyebrow, as if too dignified to grace him with one, and then takes a long breath. 

“Okay,” Murdock says finally. “Look, first of all? I think you misunderstand what my  _ job _ is, Wilson. Say it with me:  _ this is a law firm _ . You know who lives in law firms? Lawyers. And yes, I do have experience dealing with the kinds of issues that you’ve gotten yourself mixed up in here. And no, I do not have Daredevil at my every beck and call like some kind of trained bloodhound. I will see if it is still possible for me to contact him, and if it is, I’ll inform him of your situation. What he does from there is out of my hands. Daredevil and I haven’t worked together for a long time, Wilson, and when we did, it was strictly out of necessity. You’d have more luck finding him if you screamed somewhere in Hell’s Kitchen. But here you are.”

“But here I am,” Wade echoes.

“Yeah,” Murdock says. “You’re sitting in  _ my _ conference room. So you know what we’re going to do? You’re going to keep coming here. Daily. And we’re going to deal with this the way proper civilized people do. If Daredevil decides to do something convenient in the mean time, that’s up to him. Understood?”

“Woah,” Wade says, hiding the glee of things having gone exactly as planned behind a mask of surprise. “Wait. What?”

“I said,” Murdock repeats, “You’re going to _ keep coming here _ . Every day. Starting in three days, so I’ll have time to finish up old cases. And we’ll solve this the proper way, like civilized adults.”

“You’re implying Daredevil isn’t a civilized adult?”

“What I’m implying is unimportant. What I’m saying is that I want to help you solve this. I ask again: understood?”

“...Understood.” 

“Glad to hear it.” Murdock stands so abruptly the chair he’s sitting in skitters backwards across the wood. Wade mimics his movements and, as Murdock crosses around the table and holds his hand out in Wade’s general direction (if a little too far to the left), Wade shakes it. He’s smiling as he does.

Mission success.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I...tried? I dunno, man, I got lazy towards the end this chapter and I'm not totally satisfied with the result. But, it's a chapter. That will hopefully pave the way for more, better ones. Especially if y'all leave comments and kudos, because motivation is hard to come by these days and y'alls only kind words can make me u n s t o p p a b l e.
> 
> (Also, catch me neglecting my dozen other WIPS just to work on this. Oops.)


	5. Chapter Five

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Three days whisk by like they’re nothing, and the Wade spends the morning of the legal visit debating with himself over what weaponry to bring.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was a BITCH to write and I am sorry. But. Soon we'll be into another segment of the plot, and things should pick up a little.

Three days whisk by like they’re nothing, and the Wade spends the morning of the legal visit debating with himself over what weaponry to bring. It needs to be something easily concealable, something that passerby won’t notice - he’ll be in civilian attire, for once, and so won’t be skulking through alleys in the dead of night per the usual - so something small, but deadly enough to be properly intimidating. Intimidation is, after all, his primary tactic. He’ll threaten Murdock at gunpoint, demand that he call Daredevil to visit the office, and - when hornhead himself arrives - well. Sweet dreams, hun.

Wade, unfortunately, has a tendency to go for more ostentatious (useless) weapons when doing his monthly armoury stocking, and when he throws open the doors to his armory (closet) to bear witness to the awe that is his extensive collection of fantasy-designed cosplayer knives and also a few guns and other real weapons, he finds that his stash is down to a mismatched assortment of old grenades, a rocket launcher that definitely shouldn’t be kept in those conditions, and another fucking sniper rifle. 

Wade slams the doors shut to go rustling around the furniture for other weapons. Surely he has more weapons laying about, right? Sure, it’s been a bit harder recently to find them, but where the hell could they have gone?

Wade has the sudden memory of him discarding his guns after falling in the river because they were waterlogged as all hell. And before that, when Daredevil had stolen his gun in an alley. And before that, when Spider-Man’s overbearingly insufferably good intentions had made it necessary for him to abandon both his bazooka and his sniper rifle in the basement of a sub-par gang hideout’s mess room.

Oh. Right. That’s where they went.

Thankfully, Wade finds an unloaded gun shoved under one of the couch cushions, along with the TV remote he’s been in search of for a full month and some melted half-eaten candy bars. Wade stuffs the gun into in inner pocket of his sweatpants, searches for a garbage bag with which to dispose of the offending candy bars, and realizes with horror that he’s out of garbage bags. He’d been throwing away his trash, sure, but had resorted to using old bodybags.

Okay, so, maybe some home rehabilitation might be a good idea. 

Wade grabs his wallet, keys, and a decorative cosplayer knife from the closet (just in case) and sets out in search of the nearest corner store. It’s easy enough to find, but from the moment he steps in, the man at the register keeps staring - probably suspicious of Wade’s hoodie, pulled low despite the weather, or the large and very convenient pockets in his clothing.

Or maybe it was just Wade he’s staring at. Wouldn’t be the first time. There is a reason Wade avoids going out in public without his mask, and it isn’t that he likes feeling like a goddamn Deathstroke cosplayer all the time. But this is worse - the itchy, pervasive feeling of eyes on the back of his neck. He’s sorely tempted to pull out the gun and give the man a better reason to stare. Instead he finds garbage bags, air freshener, towels, and bleach in the cleaning isle and fucking books it out of the store before the cashier can return his change.

Upon returning home, Wade is presented with another issue: he doesn’t know how to fucking _clean_ . The hell do you do with bleach, anyway? It wasn’t, like, a spray bottle, it was a _gallon._ Like milk. The fuck do you do with a gallon, drink it? (There’s an idea.) But no, that would be counterproductive: instead Wade pours it along the corners of his bathroom like a priest dripping holy water along the edges of a church (that’s what priests do, right?) and then, when he looks up at the clock and realizes he’s going to be at least five minutes late to his appointment with one M. Murdock, he plugs the drain of his tub and dumps out the rest of the bottle in before skedaddling.

Murdock looks surprised when he opens the door to the office to find Wade standing there. His eyebrows tilt up behind his glasses, and he’s silent for a long moment, not moving away from the door. Wade, hands shoved in his hoodie pockets, absently taps the gun hidden there and quirks an eyebrow.

“Happy to see me?” Wade asks drily.

“You smell like you bathed in bleach,” Murdock says in response, and steps to the side to let Wade into the office. Wade strolls in, past the waiting room and towards the empty receptionist’s desk. 

“Aw, doc, you noticed,” Wade pretends to preen, perching on the edge of the desk and swinging his legs like a child on the swingset. “Don’t pay it any mind, just been doing some home cleaning.”

“It’s...very strong,” Murdock says. He’s standing in the doorway of the waiting room still, and looks like Wade has personally offended him. “ _Very_ strong.”

The hell is this guy’s problem? It’s not like Wade fucking _swam_ in it. Well, sure, he might have gotten his hands a little wet, but it’s not that big of a deal. Why would they even give a guy that much bleach in one container if he wasn’t meant to get a little creative?

Wade tells Murdock as much. Murdock visibly bites back a retort, then opens the door to the conference room and gestures for Wade inside. Wade jumps off the desk and swaggers in, sprawling into the spinny chair at the head of the table.

“Aight,” he says. “Waddya got for me, Murdock?”

Murdock follows him in and closes the door behind them. “I’ve been working on your case file - but first, have there been any new developments? Issues, threats, further hostility?”

“Naw,” Wade responds, and starts spinning the chair absently. “All good. You set your guy Daredevil on it like you promised, right?”

“He’s been notified,” Murdock says ambiguously. Wade squints at him. The hell does that mean?

“Is he around?” Wade asks. “Daredevil. Like, in town. Just so I know if he even _can_ keep an eye on me.”

“He’s around.”

“And you contacted him.”

“I did.”

“And you can do it again, right?” Wade taps absently at the gun in his pocket.

“I can. And I won’t. He’s a busy man, and he doesn’t need me texting him every hour, Wilson,” Murdock says tightly. “Can we get to the point? I have a case file we need to look over.”

“There really much to go over?” Wade asks, dubious. How the hell could Murdock get a case file on a hollow civilian cover identity?

Murdock shakes his head, then turns to the row of cabinets and wardrobes by the wall and walks over to the farthest one. He’s limping slightly, Wade notices. Odd.

Murdock pulls a key from his pocket and unlocks the topmost drawer. His back is turned. 

Wade quietly pulls the gun from his pocket and rests it on his left knee, which is draped over the arm of the spinny chair. He takes aim, but the chair, slowly rotating, throws it off, and he doesn’t other correcting. Murdock is oblivious, gently running his fingers along the braille tags taped to the case file packets, but he seems tense. His shoulders are drawn. 

“Here we go,” Matt murmurs, and pulls a manilla folder from the drawer. Wade is so surprised that the aim of the gun droops slightly as he stares. It’s fucking _massive_.

Murdock sets the folder on the table and slides it across to Wade. Wade doesn’t touch it; his gun hand, resting on his knee, drops the barrel down to the floor. 

“This,” Murdock says grimly, “is information on the man I believe to be following you.”

“You wrote this shit in three days?”

“This isn’t just recent information; it took several months to gather, and more to the point, I didn’t write it,” Murdock says. “When I asked Daredevil to look into your case, this was his response.”

Wade is getting impatient. His grip tightens minutely on the gun.

“He thinks the subject of this file is who’s following you, Wilson.”

“How the _fuck_ can he know who’s following me?” Wade scoffs. 

“He’s Daredevil. Furthermore, he’s spotted the suspect around your neighborhood a few times before this week, and the evidence I’ve compiled suits that version of the story.”

“Okay, shoot. Who you got?”

“Deadpool,” Murdock says, and he’s got a self-satisfied smug look on his face, and Wade flinches so badly he nearly falls out of the chair. 

“ _What_ the _fuck_ do you mean-”

“Deadpool,” Murdock says again. His expression shifts; he looks confused. “I just told you what I _mean_ , Wilson. I think Deadpool is the one stalking you. So I’ve read through the file, and - we have a lot of evidence here, Wilson. I’ve been adding where I can - digging through old case records, evidence files, gathering what I can. It’s overwhelming. We have enough evidence laid out here to prompt a full federal investigation.” 

“A fucking - a _federal investigation_?” Wade grabs the folder and pulls it close, flipping it open.

“Hell, a federal _strike force_ ,” Murdock says. “The evidence here is overwhelming. More than likely it’s enough to prompt the assigning of a Seal team.”

Wade stares down at the file. It’s page after page of case files, witness interviews, evidence compiled from crime scenes. The last half is in braille, but the first bit is perfectly legible. He skims through a few pages on the murder of a small business owner in Texas, killed in his apartment after hours. He remembers that man. Not a business owner, really - it had all been a cover. He was mixed up in organized crime. Wade had shot him in the head as he slept. And Murdock here was a police interview with his landlady. Apparently, she’d found the body.

Wade starts to feel sick. “How did Daredevil get all of this?”

“He has connections,” Murdock says quietly, crossing his arms. “And I found a some of that information, too. I know the right strings to pull.”

Wade stares down at the paper, and the image of the false businessperson he’d assassinated stares up at him. His fist tightens on the gun. “Did you ever consider,” he begins quietly, glancing up at Murdock, “that creating something like this might make the wrong people angry, Murdock?”

“I know,” Murdock says. His hand is resting on one of the office chairs, clenching so hard the knuckles have turned white. “I took precautions. I have a digital copy backed up in a secure location. The file’s programmed to mail itself to the police if I don’t enter a ten digit code every evening, or if I enter the code a one digit off.”

“Police can be bought off,” Wade growls.

Murdock seems unphased. “I know, and that’s why it’s also going to be sent to Jessica Jones, Spider-Man, Luke Cage, Danny Rand, and Natasha Romanoff.”

“Natasha Romanoff.”

“Don’t ask.”

“Wasn’t fucking going too, buddy,” Wade growled. Fuck, fuck fuck, fuck. This was not how this was supposed to go. This was supposed to be a simple meeting, in’n out, a little bit of blackmail and the job would be done. Instead he’s staring down at a potential fucking Seal team being sent after him for domestic terrorism. And he can’t even tell himself he doesn’t deserve it. He killed those people. Sure, the people he agrees to go after are usually monsters - murderers, smugglers, the kind of people that make even Wade’s stomach turn; he feels no guilt for their murders. But recently, he’s been getting sloppy. Less picky about who he goes after. Daredevil, for instance, is no murderer; he’s hurt people, plenty of them, but compared to the kind of jobs Wade usually agrees to take, he’s a veritable fucking angel. But he’d ignored that, and look where it got him. This is what he fucking gets for letting what shreds of morality are left inside him go disregarded.

Murdock’s still waiting for a response. Wade glances up at him and is silent. He glances down again and keeps flipping through the file, but the last half is printed in Braille so he stops and puts his head in his hands, leaving the gun on the desk. 

“You don’t seem pleased,” Murdock says drily. “I thought you wanted me to help you.”

“Dude, this isn’t fucking _helping_ me, this is putting a bullseye on my back.”

“Don’t worry, you won’t be involved in the case to any extent that the public is aware of.”

“The public? So what are you gonna do, just, just release it? Tell the world?” Wade glances up at Murdock.

“Not yet.” Murdock folds his hands on the chair in front of him. “Because that won’t get to the root of the issue. Deadpool only murders people for jobs, see. He’s a hitman, not a serial killer. But what I suspect happened is that whoever hired him that night wasn’t too happy that he left a witness, and told him to take you down and eliminate the threat. So even if we take Deadpool down right away, we won’t clear the danger. We have to figure out who’s hiring him and add that evidence to the file.”

“And exactly how do you expect to do that? You think he’ll just hand over his fucking phone contacts or something? Wade snaps.

“Blackmail,” Murdock says. “We have plenty of information; we just need a way to contact him. Safely. And then we’ll lay out the terms of the agreement and have him hand over his employer.”

“I need a walk,” Wade says, standing abruptly. “No, scratch that, I need a fucking drink.”

“Wilson, we’re not done talking-”

“To fucking morrow, Murdock. I said I need a walk. This is a lot to spring on a guy, okay? One day I’ve just had a window or two shatter and the next you’re telling me I’ve got some shady crime ring running hits on me. Give me some fucking space and we’ll talk about it tomorrow, Capiche?”

Rather than responding Murdock just stands there, face blank, watching - no, listening - to Wade yell. He’s so fucking _calm_ , just standing there like Wade’s some pesky teenager suffering from hormonal fits of passion, and it just adds fuel to Wade’s anger. He grabs the gun from the table and doesn’t get as far as shoving it in his pocket when Matt flinches; a whole body sort of flinch, with something like alarm flashing across his face.

Wade stills, frowns. Matt smiles; it’s oddly forced. “Sorry,” he says. “Headache.”

“Whatever, man,” Wade mutters. “See you tomorrow.”

Wade takes the long way home. Or, rather, he wanders about buildings and streets haphazardly for a few hours, trying to force his brain to properly think. It feels like his fall in the river left some water still floating about in his skull, dulling the edges of his thoughts when he tries to think of a plan. Why the hell did he have to choose Murdock, anyway? Why couldn’t Daredevil have been friends with a different, less psychotically cautious lawyer, someone who didn’t apparently have the number of Natasha fucking Romanoff on speed dial?

Normally, Wade’s strategy would be to take the simple route out of this. Pull the gun from his pocket and make some demands. But Murdock’s accounted for that one - Wade has no way of guaranteeing that if threatened, he wouldn’t just give the wrong code number and set off the email. He needs insurance; something to properly terrify Murdock into cooperating. He already has Murdock’s trust, an excuse to keep returning to the firm. He needs something more.

Luckily for Wade, his job lends itself to intimidation. Guns won’t do it, but if Wade finished the job, took down Daredevil, and brought Murdock proof? That would be a different story. Even Murdock couldn’t hold up if handed his former ally’s bloodstained cowl. In that case, Wade’s plan only needs a few modifications to fit the new situation.

Firstly, his plan of holding Murdock hostage to capture Daredevil won’t work, not when Murdock has so much leverage over Wade. Without someone to rescue, Daredevil won’t show up to play the knight in shining armor when called.

  
Ah, hell. Wade decides to sleep on it. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Let me know what you thought! Reading comments makes my week.


	6. Chapter Six

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Wade comes up with a plan.

Wade comes up with a plan. Plans, typically, are not Wade’s speciality. He prefers to pack the right weapons and just go with the flow. Brilliant strategy, works equally well in assassinations and barfights, and it’ll do for laser tag too in a pinch. Unfortunately, in this case, the flow is leading to a waterfall lined with craggy rocks and Wade’s riding along a cheap inflatable pool toy with  _ NOT FOR EIGHT AND OLDER _ warning text printed on the side, so he’s come to the conclusion that he needs to get the fuck outa the river or else learn to hold his breath pretty fast.

The plan involves more lying, because that had gone so well for Wade in the first place. Here’s the thing: Wade knows he’s dug himself into a hole, but at this point he’s only got a shovel and no ladder out, so he might as well just tunnel further until he comes out in China. 

But. About the lying; this time Wade thinks he’s finally thought of a story that won’t snap back and slap him in the face like a rubber band in the midst of a failed spitball shoot. It won’t get him out of the ditch, but it’ll toss him a new shovel to tide him through till he comes up for air in Shanghai. He remembers an case he turned down a few weeks ago. It was an offer someone had made him in exchange for the murder of a too-nosy journalist in Brooklyn. Wade had rejected it; whole thing was a bit too dirty for his tastes. Smelled of silencing the press and murdering the innocent a tad more than his usual side gigs, and the compensation they’d offered was hardly enough for him to buy the rare Johnny Storm collectible bobblehead he’d had his eye on, much less the far more expensive Captain Marvel version. The journalist had been killed anyway, by a different assassin; doubtless someone good at covering their tracks. Wade still remembers the details - what company had tried to hire him, the name of the journalist. He makes up a whole story about it, memorizes the details, and shows up to Murdock’s law firm the next day prepped and ready, feeling like an actor on opening day.

He only gets as far as collapsing into the office spinny chair when there comes a knock from the door. Murdock, halfway through opening the file cabinet, closes it again and leaves to answer it. Wade, moral code as impeccable as ever, starts to scoot his chair nearer the door so he can eavesdrop on whomever is visiting. One of Murdock’s partners finally back from their solstices, perhaps, or a potential client seeking refuge?

The chair-scooting turns out to be unnecessary, because Murdock’s guest strolls right through the waiting room into the receptionist’s office, where Wade can clearly see him through the inner windows of the conference room. It’s a young man, late teens or early twenties, with unruly brown hair and a button-up shirt with the top three buttons undone. He starts talking loudly as soon as he makes it through the doorway.

“Matt! Matty! Good to see you, old buddy- whoops, gotta get through the door there, I’m sure you’re not actually trying to block me out, huh? Ha, ha - that would be odd, right? Almost like you were avoiding me.”

“You’re neither old nor trusted, Peter, please get off Karen’s desk,” Murdock says mildly, pausing in the doorway to the waiting room. Peter, having already scooted back onto the receptionist’s desk, just gives Murdock a winning smile and doesn’t budge.

“Sure I am. You’ve known me since I was a tyke. Well, seventeenish. Same thing. Point is, have I ever robbed you, Matt?”

“That remains to be seen.” 

“No. I have not. Point proven that I am both an old and trusted friend. Judge is swayed, case adjourned.”

“Not how that works,” Murdock says. He’s smiling slightly as he says it. It’s a strange look on him, but pleasant to witness, the way an aurora borealis is as startling as it is intoxicating. Wade’s eyes, moving without his consent, trace the stubble on Murdock’s jawline.

“Sure it is, Matty, who here knows how a courtroom works? Because I’m telling you, I’ve been arrested at least thrice, I’m a veritable expert-”

“Peter,” Murdock cuts him off. “I have a client. You’re interrupting.”

Peter startles a little and glances around, spots Wade. His expression settles again. He hops off the desk, smooths out his shirt, and, handshakes being prevented by distance, waves at Wade through the doorway. It should be the most awkward thing in the world, and somehow, it isn’t.

Wade shuffles his chair through the doorway and into the receptionist’s office, where he sticks his hand out at Peter. Peter shakes it and gives him a jovial smile. He somehow seems genuinely unshaken by Wade’s appearance. Wade is more surprised at this than he would be were Peter to pull a jar of holy water from his pocket and begin to chug.

“I’m Peter, one of Matt’s friends,” Peter says. “You? Wait, don’t answer that, this is probably violating doctor-patient confidentiality already.”

“Lawyer-client,” Murdock interjects.

“Lawyer patient whatever. Look, I don’t mean to be interrupting, but to be honest, I didn’t know Matty here was taking clients while Foggy and Karen are away. In fact, I seem to recall something about him saying he  _ wouldn’t _ do that.” Peter casts his smile in Murdock’s direction.

“Special case,” Murdock says, unphased.

“Sure it is, buddy. Look, Mr Client, I hope you don’t mind my stealing Matt here for just a moment. It’ll be quick. We have some matters to discuss. Matty, hallway?”

“Hallway,” Murdock agrees, grudging.

They leave for the hallway.

It only takes a few moments, but Murdock seems bent-out of shape when he returns, like Peter ruffled his feathers the wrong way. Wade states as much when Murdock pulls the wrong file from the cabinet for the third time in a row and swears violently upon realizing his mistake.

“I’m fine,” Murdock says quickly. “Fine. It’s nothing to do with Peter.”

“Oh, I know how it can be with younguns,” Wade says knowingly, though he doesn’t. “Take your eye off of them for half a moment and they’re falling out of the nest, right?”

“More like they hash it out at you for ever taking your eye off them in the first place,” Murdock mutters, then clears his throat. “Look, Peter’s not the issue. And it’s not - he’s not my  _ ‘youngun’ _ , or anything. Just an old acquaintance. It doesn’t matter.”

“It matters to you, it matters to me, boo,” Wade says sweetly. 

Murdock tilts his head to face Wade, expression disgruntled. “Please don’t.”

“No flirting?” Wade asks. Murdock’s expression confirms. “No flirting. Don’t worry, we’ll get there eventually, hun.”

“With any luck this case will be well and truly wrapped up before then,” Murdock says, grimacing. He’s right, but hearing it said makes Wade’s cheery expression droop a little. He leans back in his spinny chair and shuffles it backwards through the conference room door again. Murdock follows him through.

“I was thinking of spending today looking over the file for irregularities.” Murdock finds the right folder and sets it on the table. “We’ll look into the more recent murders and research what we find. With luck we’ll find something that leads back to your case.”

“That won’t be necessary,” Wade says. Murdock just looks at him, eyebrows raised, an expression made odder by its pointlessness. “Look, I have something to say. I wasn’t totally honest with you last week - I was a little freaked out, let’s be honest, but there’s something about this that I didn’t tell you. I wasn’t telling the truth.”  
“I’m surprised,” Murdock says, and a half moment later his face rearranges to look surprised. 

“I said I didn’t see the guy he was killing,” Wade says, and leans forward onto the table. “That was a lie. I saw him - it was a guy I know. A journalist.”

Murdock’s eyebrows go up. “Who?”

“Ed Davison, worked for the Bugle.”

“I heard about his disappearance.” Murdock’s quiets his voice. There’s something in his expression that prompts Wade to follow suit as he continues.

“I knew him - not well, but I’d seen him a few months before, asking around my neighborhood for a story. And when I saw...I...I recognized him.”

“Fuck,” Murdock muttered. “Probably was killed over a story. Whoever he was last investigating got antsy. Wilson, this is significant. Why the hell didn’t you tell me sooner?”

“I was  _ scared _ , okay?” Wade snaps. “I didn’t want to get  _ more _ involved - I really thought you’d just send Daredevil to take care of this so I wouldn’t have to be more in danger!”

“We have to rerecord your case statement,” Murdock says, turning to get a recorder from the cabinet. “I’ll have to restart my research, too. Find whatever case Davison was last assigned. You know, this whole situation would be over a lot faster if you’d try being honest with me, Wilson.”

Wade does know. That was precisely why he isn’t being honest. He has to drag this out until his plan of killing Daredevil to ensure Murdock’s silence was a surety, and the longer he relies on Murdock’s trust to continue this little investigation, the better the chances that Murdock will trust him when the time comes to call in reinforcements in the form of Daredevil.

But that’s in the future. For now, all Wade needs to do is rerecord this goddamn case statement.

Wade does two things during the time not spent helping Murdock with his pointless investigation into Ed Davison’s disappearance. Firstly, he goes to any lengths to avoid the Deadpool suit. Murdock had already mentioned something about Daredevil spotting Deadpool around Wade’s apartment; Wade does  _ not  _ need to give the two of them further reason to put two and two together. So he hides the Deadpool suit in the corner of his closet and takes to wearing hoodies and masks when involved in illegalities, and speaking of illegalities: the second thing he does is replenish his armory. It had been upsettingly empty for a while now. He calls up some old favors and one thing or another leads him ending up in a deserted parking lot at midnight with an illegal weaponry dealer and a trunk full of guns.

“You know, it’s been a while since you called me,” the arms dealer, a woman who is pretending her name was Eve, says, as Wade leans into the trunk of her van and peers at the assorted weaponry. There’s a pile of pistols, a rocket launcher or two, some sniper rifles; Wade feels like a child in a candy shop. As Wade responds, he picks up one of the sniper rifles and peers through the scope, getting a fuzzy zoomed-in view of the lint stuck to the back of the backseat.

“I’ve not needed new weapons in a while, hun, it’s nothing personal,” Wade tells her, and discards the sniper rifle in favor of a bazooka. He hasn’t had one of these since the incident with Spider-Man. 

Eve gives him a critical eye. “Not gotten any good jobs recently?”

“I’ll have you know I’ve gotten some  _ fantastic _ -” Wade cuts himself off to squint at Eve. “You’re trying to get me to tell you about my jobs, aren’t you. I’m not going to take the bait; I’m no fool.”

“Course you’re not, darling,” Eve sooths. “I know you work in secrecy. I just figured if you didn’t need any proper weaponry recently, you probably haven’t had any difficult marks.”

“My marks are as difficult as ever. One of them dropkicked me into the Hudson River just a week or so ago.”

“Back in my day Deadpool would be the one doing the dropkicking of marks, not vice versa,” Eve says disapprovingly. “You’ve lost your touch. I have a hard time believing you’d really be able to handle a difficult mark like you used to.”

“Nice one, Eve. Now cut it out. I’m not telling you anything.”

Eve shrugs. “It was worth a try.”

Wade picks up the rocket launcher, but she puts a hand on his arm and gives him a sickly sweet smile. “That one’s just for looking, love, let’s not play around.”

“I thought you said these weren’t armed or loaded.”

“I’d rather not take any risks.”

Wade huffs and puts back the launcher. Probably would’ve cost a half million dollars anyway. Eve leans against the side of the van and gives him a beady glare. Wade can tell she’s revving herself up for another jab.

“Word on the street is you got taken down by Spider-Man a few weeks ago.”

Wade scoffs. “ _ Word on the street _ . Did you always talk like a mob movie villain?”

Eve points at him. “You’re avoiding the question.”

“It wasn’t a question.”

“Did you or did you not get beat up by a kid in red spandex, Deadpool?”

Wade gives her a blank, unimpressed look that’s mostly covered over by the mask. She bursts into laughter, loud and explosive, and doubles over for a long moment, wheezing. By the time she’s straightened up, there are tears edging the corners of her eyes. Wade glances at the pile of unloaded guns in the trunk before them and envisions himself smashing Eve over the head with one. The image brings a smile to the corners of his mouth, which is just as quickly wiped away when Eve keeps talking.

“DP, Spidey’s like twenty, tops. I wasn’t serious when I said you were loosing your touch, but man, sometimes you make me wonder.”

“You know, I know a lot of weaponry dealers,” Wade says irritably, picking a rifle from the pile. “I could always just go to one of them for business and save myself the agony that is your voice grating on my ears.”

“You know you love me best,” Eve croons. 

Wade points at her with the rifle for emphasis. “I most certainly do not. I just figured you’d be the easiest to trick into a cheap deal because your brain’s the size of a walnut. Want me to prove I know plenty of others? I’ll do it. Jerry Fanghorn, Atlas, A.J.-”

Eve counts off on her fingers. “You got Jerry arrested when police raided your apartment last summer and found his contact, Atlas tried to turn you into authorities, and A.J. won’t talk to you since you accidentally badmouthed him to his wife when you thought she was another client. I know these people, DP. They know you. They hate you. You’re very unpopular among lawless heathens, you know.”

“What a nightmare,” Wade says dully.

“It’s a side effect of you killing half of us off for money.”

“Why do  _ you _ trust me, then?”

“I know the truth,” Eve says solemnly. “I know you’re a bitch and a fool, DP. And I wear bulletproof everything.”

“You’re an ass,” Wade says.

“I know you are, but what am I?”  
“See? That. Right there. Proof.”

“Just get your weapons and get outta here, DP,” Eve sighs. 

For once in his life, Wade complies.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading!! Kudos and (especially) comments are always greatly appreciated.


	7. Chapter Seven

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Wade starts to feel human.

Wade and Murdock fall into a kind of routine. He shows up to the law firm every second day and spends the sessions dawdling around, attempting to distract Murdock from his research. This can be done any number of ways, Wade finds, as Murdock is easily distractible. Wade starts by trying to engage Murdock in political discussion, which he politely sweeps aside. That failing, Wade throws some wild misunderstandings on the topic of sports leagues Murdock’s way, hoping that Murdock will prove to be the kind of over talkative sports fan Wade has spent most of his life avoiding. This comes up in vain. The third time’s the charm; Wade sidetracks Murdock into discussing how it’s common for criminal groups to target the kinds of people who would be unwilling to present in a court of law, such as undocumented immigrants or those without the income to afford court, and then Wade pretends to be of the opinion that illegal immigrants don’t have constitutional rights, and Murdock rises up to pin Wade with an expression full of such cold indignation that Wade feels the chill dripping down his spine like icy water and launches into a detailed legal argument, with citations, that lasts twenty minutes in completion and includes introductory and closing statements. 

At the end of the session Wade is surprised to find he actually feels as though he’s learned something. Sure, he never actually _believed_ that bullshit about constitutional rights, but he hadn’t known about the several Supreme Court cases that proved it false, which Murdock had cited for him word for word. For Wade to feel ever like he’s learned something is a remarkably rare occurrence. Usually his brain feels like a degraded old ruin, all full of run-down memories rusting over and trains of thought that break down or fall off the tracks before they can reach their destination. Something about listening to Murdock’s voice clears the fog and lets him see the skyline.

Murdock does have a lovely voice, Wade reflects. It’s as if he’s convinced his own words to ring as if in a marble pillared court of law, instead of the dusty sunlit office in a corner of Hell’s Kitchen; he just speaks in a way that makes Wade want to believe him. And seeing him as he speaks certainly helps, too - with a face like that, Wade agrees with him before he ever opens his mouth. 

The second day Wade spends his walk to the office scrolling through articles on his phone about legal misconceptions. He can’t find a worthwhile one, so he tries a more direct approach. Wade waits until Murdock’s halfway through an attempt at explaining how he’s been researching past Supreme Court cases to build a legal argument for once Wade’s able to go before court, and then he interrupts with “I don’t see the point of a Supreme Court, anyway - not if we already have a shmucks in DC making the laws.”

Murdock freezes, frowns, and gives Wade a imperious look of disapproval. “Didn’t you ever learn about that in school? What kind of social studies courses did you _take_?”

Wade pauses and tries to remember. The train of thought hits a chip in the rails and falls off the tracks. He pulls his attention back to the present in time to hear himself saying “Shitty ones, mainly; my teachers were usually hung-over.”

Sounds right. It might even be true; Wade would know if he could remember anything about his childhood besides the traumatic bits.

Murdock mutters something incomprehensible about the school system and then sighs, resting his arms on the table and leaning forward slightly. 

“It’s not as simple as making laws and expecting them to be upheld, Wilson,” he says. “Legal wording and technicalities can be incredibly complex and self-defeating. If left unchecked America’s Legislative Branch would double cross its own laws to a point of utter incomprehensibility. The number of laws in America’s history that for _decades_ were left in place and upheld despite violating the most fundamental articles of the constitution, is, frankly, horrifying when considered in context of today’s-”

And off he goes, like a snowball down a hill. Just picking up speed.

Day three’s distraction is happened upon entirely by accident. Wade mentions that he spends most of his time not at the legal office wandering the city aimlessly, living off old savings and unwilling to get a job until things blow over. Murdock pauses in flipping through the Braille section of the evidence folder and gets the same expression on his face he’d had when preparing to explain to Wade the intricacies of the Judicial Branch’s higher legal system.

“Have you considered volunteering?” Murdock asks. 

Wade frowns, shakes his head, slaps himself in the face, then responds verbally.

“You really should.” Murdock leans forward on the table again - Wade’s noticed he has a tendency to do that when about to get intense. “I can point you towards a few reliable groups within Hell’s Kitchen who do a lot of good work and need more people to help out - I do it myself when I can, but between the law firm and - well. Clinton Church has a lot of different volunteer opportunities open to those outside the community - but if you don’t want to work with a religious group, I can point you towards other organizations.”

“I’m not really a reliable sort of person,” Wade points out.

“Oh, I know,” Murdock says self-assuredly. Wade frowns at him. “But there are plenty of low-intensity positions that will be simple for you to handle. I can set one up for you easy.”

“I dunno, man, I’m not a volunteer type.”

“You can’t handle the responsibility?”

“I didn’t say that.”

“But clearly, you meant it,” Murdock says. “What I’m hearing is that you have no reason not to do it, except that you just aren’t able to handle it.” He leans back in his chair and the self-satisfied look returns.

Wade frowns at him. “That’s not - I can handle it fine.”

“Really? Prove it.”

“Come on. Dude. I’m not that easy to manipulate.”

Matt tilts his head at Wade. “Did I tell you about what the volunteering is like? The nuns at St Agnes are amazing. Total badasses. And some of the volunteers are regulars, always show up on certain days - like Annie Sutton, ever since she retired she’s been showing up almost every day, and she brings the what’s left of the home-cooked meals her and her wife make. Best food you’ll ever eat. Kimberly Ortiz’s husband is a professional chef and always makes extra. Ava Goodwin bakes brownies every Saturday.”

Wade makes a horrifying realization that he has just engaged in an argument with a lawyer. A lawyer who clearly knows his weak spots.

“When was the last time you ate food that wasn’t ramen or takeout, Wade?” Murdock asks. Wade doesn’t answer. His resolve is quickly dripping away.

He’s to realize, later, that this is the first time Murdock uses his first name.

“Clinton church,” Murdock says. “Tomorrow. 4 P.M. I’ll meet you by the steps.”

He seems remarkably certain that he’s won Wade over. As Wade finds the next afternoon, he’s right.

Murdock, true to his word, is lurking near the steps of Clinton Church the next day, standing behind the shadowed grove of trees that shields the front of Clinton Church from the street. The first thing Wade notices upon seeing him is that he’s not wearing a suit; rather, a button-up with jeans and a jacket. It’s disorienting, seeing him without the starkly tinted armor of his professional legal suit. It makes him seem softer around the edges, somehow. He’s still, standing with his head tilted towards the road as if listening, and doesn’t react to Wade’s presence until Wade, standing at the foot of the steps with his hands shoved in his hoodie pockets, greets him with a “Guess you won me over, Murdock.”

Murdock smiles. The expression gives Wade a strange thrill in the pit of his stomach. “Knew I would,” he says, voice as steady as Wade’s ever heard it. “The nuns will be happy to see new faces around here. It’s usually the same few people.”

Wade shifts, uncomfortable. He’d known Murdock would be there, of course, and some part of his mind must have known to expect others, but he hadn’t properly considered the prospects of enduring several hours around other people, unmasked.

He wonders if they’ll make him take his hood down. Anxiety flares and his heart skips a beat.

Murdock is silent for a moment before cutting in. “I’ll talk to the nuns and see where they could use you,” he says. “There are always a lot of things they need help with at once - sometimes with soup kitchens or helping the homeless, or work in St Agnes.”

“St Agnes?”

Murdock shifts, turning to the door. He pushes it open, holding it for Wade, who scales the

steps into the church interior.

“It’s an orphanage the church runs. Well, called an orphanage out of tradition,” Murdock explains, “but the technical term is a a group home for at-risk youth. It converted to one from an orphanage a long time ago and no one got around to changing the name.”

Wade cranes his neck to see the church hall properly. It’s impressive, all arching stone and light dancing from the colorful tinted glass windows. There are crosses everywhere. His skin crawls.

Murdock seems to know the way from there, leading them into a dimly lit hallway branching off from the chapel. A few reroutes from there, all plaster walls and quiet noise echoing through the walls, and they reach a larger room, with windows open to the street, where few nuns are scattered about giving directions to small clusters of people. There are fifteen, sixteen people in the room, tops, but Wade still has to resist the urge to shrink into the shadows of his hoodie to evade attention.

“Wait here,” Murdock says, as they stand in the doorway, and slips through the crowd to one of the nuns. Wade, obediently standing in place, strains to hear their conversation, but it’s incomprehensible through the crowd. Wade feels a rush of relief when a few moments later, as Murdock returns from speaking with the nun, directs the two of them back through the door and into a stairwell.

“That was Sister Marie,” Murdock explains, as they start to descend the steps of the stairwell. “She gave us an assignment in St Agnes - they’re making a new playroom and need us to clear a wall for them, just the two of us.”

“Our volunteer work is smashing a wall?”

“I don’t second guess Sister Marie, Wade, and I suggest you don’t either.”

“She’s just a nun. What’s she gonna do, pray me into hell?”

Murdock makes an uncommitting sound. “No, but frankly, you’ll wish she had if she ever gives you a proper scolding. She’s terrifying.”

They reach the bottom of the stairwell and Wade opens the door to emerge into yet another dimly lit room, this one free of windows or natural light. It’s gloomy, and mostly empty, save for a pile of dangerous looking tools near the door. The opposite wall is marked with a red X.

Murdock shuts the door behind them and pauses expectantly. Wade is silent with him for a moment before picking up on the cue. “There’s a pile of tools to your left,” he says, “and the wall opposite has a big X on it, so I’m guessing that’s what we’re going for.”

“Sounds right,” Murdock says. He leans his cane against the wall and sheds his coat, dropping it on the floor near the tools and leaving himself in just the button-up and jeans. Crouching down and running his hands over the pile of tools, he finds a sledgehammer and lifts it, standing and weighing it experimentally in his palms.

Wade picks up an axe and gives it a critical once-over. “Is this safe? It doesn’t seem safe. Shouldn’t professionals be doing this?”

“Only one way to find out,” Murdock says airily. And he’s right.

  
  


A nun opens the door to the stairwell and interrupts their progress an hour later to find the wall halfway through to destruction and both of them miraculously still alive. Murdock drops a slab of plaster on their pile and straightens when he hears the door open. Wade resists the urge to throw the axe and run.

“Sister Marie?” He guesses.

“Maggie,” the nun corrects sharply. Murdock smiles. “I was sent to see how you two are coping.”

“Oh, we’re doing alright,” Murdock says. “I half expected to run into a live electrical wire in the wall, but no luck.”

Sister Maggie gives him a sharp look that he seems to somehow anticipate, as he adopts a look of chagrin. “Sorry.”

“We did _check_ , you know.”

“I know.” Murdock starts rolling his shirt-sleeves up, exposing his forearms. This attracts Wade’s attention for a long moment before he realizes that the nun is both silent and staring at him. He quickly snaps his gaze to her instead, and upon realizing that might be just as sinful, stares at the stairwell sign directly above her head.

“Hmph,” Sister Maggie says finally. “Well, as long as you’re alright. Good to see you using all that muscle for something other than-”

“Thank you for your concern,” Murdock interrupts, cutting her off, “but we’re fine.”

He _does_ have muscle, Wade realizes, coming to notice a fact he’d been admiring of if not fully conscious of up until then. Murdock was kind of jacked, actually - as far as one could tell behind all the button-ups. How does a blind lawyer get that kind of muscle?

Wade asks as much as soon as the nun has retreated back into the stairwell. 

“I do boxing,” Murdock says, which is unsuitably vague. Further interrogation amounts to little information, so Wade relents that line of questioning and asks as to Murdock’s relations with the nuns.

“My dad took me to Clinton Church when we were younger,” Murdock says. “For a few years after he died I cycled around the foster care system, eventually ended up at St Agnes’s.”

Oh.

“It’s fine,” Murdock says, seeming to sense Wade’s lack of a suitable response. “Good years, really. Well. Not actually, but in comparison. And the nuns really care about the kids, you know. It makes a difference.”

“What was that like?” Wade asks, though unsure if he’s digging himself into yet another hole.

“Oh, the usual orphan Annie shit,” Murdock responds, leaning against the still-intact wall to rest. “Nothing interesting. Found a rat in my bed a few times.”

“Aw, dude, don’t talk about yourself like that,” Wade says. 

Murdock laughs. It’s the simplest thing - lasting only a moment - but it seems to hover in the air like a drug, sending Wade into a momentary haze as he watches Murdock slouch against the wall.

Wade resolves to hear that laugh more often. 

The next day at the law firm Murdock seems lighter. Wade’s not sure what it is - maybe the ease with which he moves, free from the tension usually knotting his shoulders - or the smile occasionally gracing his features, or how he slips into conversation with Wade easily, lightly, like it’s the simplest thing in the world to be exchanging banter with Wade.

 _He doesn’t know,_ Wade thinks. _He doesn’t know I’m hardly human._

The thought sits in the pit of his stomach like an anchor, dragging him down. Wade doesn’t walk with a newfound lightness, not the way Murdock does. He walks like a man whose wristwatch is set to blow.

“Can I expect to find you at St Agnes’s again tomorrow?” Murdock asks, at the end of a session spent evidence-building for the bullshit case Wade had pulled out of his ass a few days back. 

Wade is caught off-guard. Thrown off his rhythm.

“I think Sister Maggie liked you,” Murdock adds, “and I know you left right after finishing yesterday, but this go-around you might be able to snag some leftovers on your way out.”

“I’ll think about it,” Wade says.

And to his surprise, he does.

They spend the next day painting a wall. Wade cracks jokes, Murdock laughs. The sound turns light to honey. By the end of the day, as he’s walking home with a bag of hastily packaged leftovers one of the nuns had thrust at him as he left, Wade almost feels human. The sun is setting between the buildings, streaming scarlet light across the roads, and the light flickers off a thousand skyscraper windows. Wade tilts his head back and to feel the wind on his face.

His burner phone buzzes with a text. He pulls it out and opens the messages.

**$$$$$:** **I’m waiting.**

Ah, shit.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TEN DAYS. I'm very sorry. In my defense the minecraft village I built in the meantime is gorgeous. Hopefully future updates will be swifter.
> 
> On the bright side, maybe I needed a break, because this chapter was a lot easier to write. Just flowed easier.
> 
> Comments and kudos are treasured.


	8. Chapter Eight

Wade is given two days. Two days to deliver on his promise. To kill Daredevil and threaten Murdock into silence. One of these days is spent sprawled on his apartment couch, sharpening knives and polishing guns and listening to the hum of the air conditioner. 

He doesn’t want to do it, is the issue. Doesn’t want to shatter the glass palace that had been the last few days. The momentary peace he’d found standing in the basement of that church had felt delicate, fragile, but above all  _ real _ , for the first time in a good part of Wade’s long and painful forty year eternity. And here he’s handed a rock and been told to shatter roof above his head.

But Wade’s so very good at shattering things, and things around Wade are so very good at shattering. What else is he supposed to do? Live, settle, try to be calm amidst the knowledge that his life is a fragile thing and he so very good at breaking it? Nothing he’s done before has kept the Earth from crumbling beneath his feet and here he finds himself standing stock still upon a ledge of snow. Any moment could trigger an avalanche. He can’t be still forever, waiting for the day it all crumbles. Better to dive and hope for the best. 

Better to crumble the glass house himself before it can shatter above his head and rain down all hell upon him.

Murdock would figure out eventually. He’s clever, that way, and a nosy type of man. And Wade, Lord help him, is a terrible liar. 

Only one way out. Back straight, deep breaths, prepare for the coming fall. Throw some rocks, while you’re at it, to cut the wait.

Sunlight creeps away from the windows, shadows shift and loom across his apartment, and the day, gradually, fades from the skyline. The next day is found in the glow of the sun on the dawn horizon. Wade, bleary from a brief and shallow sleep, wakes to find himself sprawled on the couch amid a pile of guns. His phone has three new messages from Murdock. It’s the first time Murdock has texted him, despite having demanded Wade gouge his phone number into a slip of paper.

**Unknown number:** This is Matt Murdock.

**Unknown number:** You didn’t show up for today’s consultation. Let me know when I can expect to see you next. I don’t want to have to contact the police but given the circumstances it’s on the table if you don’t contact me soon. 

Wade feels like the cold, bright screen of his phone is burning his eyes, so he rubs the sleep from them and fiddles with one of his guns for a long moment before responding. 

**Wade Wilson:** Deadpool speaking.

**Wade Wilson:** I hear you’re all buddy-bud with Daredevil, right hun?

**Wade Wilson** : Tell him he can find me and Wilson in an abandoned building at the intersection of 9th and W 50th. Second floor, north-east corner office. Don’t try anything nasty dear or Wadeykins will have his brains removed (: 

Wade feels something in the pit of his stomach, weighing on his lungs. It’s not the honey-sweet feeling that had flooded him at the sound of Murdock’s laugh. It’s cold, like river-water. There is algae growing on his bones. 

It’s ten, twenty minutes before Murdock responds, and it feels longer.

**Unknown number:** He’s been informed.

The building on the corner of 9th and W 50th is a small and empty cluster of offices manned only by a lone security guard. The guard, who watches the news on his phone during his shift, is easily slipped past. Wade wears civilian clothes and shoves loaded guns into every pocket or crevice. 

Wade starts by climbing the fire escape to the second floor, where he uses his elbow to smash in a large glass window panel and slip inside. The guard hears the crash and comes running. Wade doesn’t put up much of a fight, at first. Starts with a bit of aggravation to instigate the fight, then lets the guy go batshit on him. It’s a tactic Wade’s been using for years, to carefully deflect his enemys’ rightful caution: he’ll show up to a fight wounded, maybe with a few broken limbs, and prattle on about vague pop culture. Pretty soon the opponents have such low expectations for the fight they let Wade slip from below their noses and are promptly greeted by a gunshot wound to the head.

But Wade’s only been paid for one murder this go-around, so once he’s got a few broken bones in the mix he head-butts the guard into oblivion. Shoves him in a closet. Locks the door.

  
  
  


And then he curls up in a window corner of the second floor and waits. 

Waits. 

Waits. 

Light fades away, turning silver with the night sky, and the sounds of evening traffic settles into a quiet hum. 

Hours tick by second by second.

Right as the last of the sunset has drained from the room, and pale moonlight has become a delicate gauze draping over the paisley office floors, someone appears in the doorway. A broad-shouldered figure, silhouetted in blackness, recognizable by the horns pointing up from the helmet.

Daredevil steps into a patch of moonlight, into view. Wade, head tilted back into the wallpaper, watches him through slitted eyes and lets his breathing settle into something more reminiscent of sleep. Daredevil glances around. His left hand draws a pair of batons from his belt and grasps them loosely as he examines the room.

He spots Wade. His shoulders draw up tight. He walks forward, crouches in front of Wade, and waves his hand in front of Wade’s eyes to test a reaction.

Wade doesn’t move.

Daredevil, gloved hands moving gently, lifts Wade’s chin with one hand. Something soft shivers in Wade’s spine.

“Wilson,” he says softly. He sounds gruff, like tires on gravel. A little like he’s trying to hard to pitch his voice down low.

“Wilson,” Daredevil says again, louder. Wade chokes out some mumbled, incomprehensible words and opens his eyes.

“We’re in an office building,” Daredevil says quietly. “You were unconscious. You look like you got in a fight.”

“No shit,” Wade mumbles, and then coughs for effect. 

“Who did this?”

“Deadpool.”  
“Where is he?”

Wade breaks into a bout of coughing and then clutches his broken rib. “Moootherfucker.” He pushes Daredevil’s hand aside and tries to get up. Daredevil shifts and holds his elbow, helping him stand.

“Wilson,” Daredevil says urgently. “You have to tell me where Deadpool is.”

“Bastard left,” Wade says. He yanks himself free of Daredevil and leans against the shattered window-sill to his right, just clear of the shards of glass. He slips a hand into the pocket and wraps it around the cold handle of the gun nestled there. “Jumped out the window when I told him about the file. Sounded scared.”

He looks out the window. A car rushes along the street below.

“How long ago?”

A shadow falls across the windowsill. Wade, freezes mid-glance at Daredevil and looks back out the window. His breath catches in his chest.

There’s a woman hanging from a rope, upside-down, red cloth draped over her nose. She is watching him; in the hand not clutching the rope in which her legs are tangled is grasping a knife. 

She looks at him and smiles.

What happens next happens is a blur. The woman kicks off against the window sill, swings backwards, and on her return lets go of her rope and sails through the window, feet-first. Her boots collide with Wade’s chest and shoves him backwards; he slips on shards of glass, falls, and lands with a hard thud on his back, the breath knocked out of him. The woman lands to his right, ducks into a roll and pops to her feet, standing over Wade’s head. She angles her knife towards him and draws her arm up for a throw.

Daredevil tackles her right as she throws. Her aim diverted, the knife embeds itself in the carpet next to Wade’s face. His entire body seizes in a flinch. Daredevil and the woman he tackled land on the floor and there’s a scuffle. By the time Wade props himself up on his elbow to watch, Daredevil has pinned the woman in place with a hand tight around her wrists and an arm gently pressing her neck in place. She snarls at him from below her red-silk mask. The scene seems almost familiar.

“Elektra,” Daredevil growls.

Ah. That’s what seems familiar.

“That man is here to kill you,” Elektra hisses, eyes cold. “Let me  _ go _ so I can slit his neck.”

The black eyes of the Daredevil mask are unflinching. “I know, Elektra.”

Wade feels something in him go cold again. River-water in his lungs.

“You  _ know _ ?” Elektra’s voice is chilling. She hooks a knee around Daredevil’s leg and flips him over; he grunts as his back hits the ground. Rather than pinning him, she rolls away and to her feet, picking her knife from the floor and fixing Wade with a stare.

“I can hear _ lies _ , Elektra, of course I know,” Daredevil growls. “I always knew. There’s a reason I’m here.”

Elektra whirls away from Wade to stare at Daredevil. “And what  _ possible _ reason could that be, Matty?”

Matty?

“Deadpool’s been targeting the people I love,” Daredevil says. He takes a step towards Elektra. “I have to keep them safe, Elektra. Any means necessary. Including tactics I wouldn’t usually use.”  
“You’re a terrible liar.”

“And he’s a terrible spy. I still got the job done. Why are you here?”

Wade shifts and gets to his feet. He takes a few steps away from the pair of them, still circling like wolves.

“I keep tabs on people operating out of Hell’s Kitchen.”

Daredevil’s jaw twitches. “I can take care of myself, Elektra.”

“Really? Is that what this is? You dancing around Hell’s Kitchen with an assassin-for-hire on your tail? Acting as though he’s something to be toyed with.”

Cold anger flushes through Wade’s head and he narrows his eyes, slips a hand into his hoodie pocket and grabs the gun hidden there. Daredevil turns his head and the glass eyes of his cowl pin Wade with a stare. Wade lets go of the gun. 

Daredevil looks back at Elektra. 

“I’m doing this for a reason,” he repeats. 

She scoffs.

“I’ve been building evidence. It’s for a case.The closer he is the easier that is and the better I can mark his movements, Elektra. Don’t tell me you wouldn’t do the same.”  
Wade feels as though he’s wading through a swamp. His thoughts, clumsily assembled, are too disjointed. Uncoordinated. All bumping around, running into each other, making it too difficult for him to understand what’s right before him. As he tries to patch things together he finds the ground whisking away beneath him, dragging him down. 

The avalanche, it seems, has begun.

Elektra sucks in a long, deep breath. Her eyes fix on the paisley floor carpeting at Matt’s feet before slowly dragging up his figure to his jawline.

“Okay,” she says. Her voice suddenly sounds ragged. “Okay. You’re building a case. Let me help.”

“No.” His reaction is immediate. Cold. Sharp.

“Matty,” she says. “I’m not letting you do this alone. It’s over, I’m out of your hair. I’ll leave you be. But you have one more day before you turn him in, hm? I’ll stay with you until then. Keep an eye on things.”

“You can’t do this, Elektra,” Daredevil says quietly. “You can’t keep breaking into my life whenever you want a place in it and then leaving it in shattered pieces. Not again. Not after everything.”

He sounds tired.

_ Matt _ sounds tired.

Elektra is quiet for a long moment. “Just give me something to do,” she says. “Some way to help. Doesn’t have to be here. Doesn’t have to be with you. Just something good.”  
Matt sighs. Is quiet, breathes in, continues. “I’ll take Wade back to my office for a statement,” he says. “Stay with me till then and I’ll - I’ll record a confession. Then you leave.”

Elektra’s smile is sharp at the edges.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oops. Long update time. I'm multitasking when it comes to writing rn, so things are a bit tight, but I have no intentions of letting this fic fall by the wayside.
> 
> Kudos and comments are treasured and if you like my writing maybe check out some other of my works! Like this one! (https://archiveofourown.org/works/24737755) It's a character study of Clint Barton! anyway love yall


	9. Chapter Nine

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nelson, Murdock & Page looks different cast in moonlight.
> 
> It might be the tight grip of Elektra’s hands holding Wade’s wrists, or the cold air on his unmasked face, but something feels off about the seeing of the building like this, alternately shadowed and cast in a chilly glow from street lamps. In the weeks before, the office had been characterized by warmth and occupation - the glow of sunlight trickling through the windows, the soft hum of the inner heating fighting against the chill of an open window, Matt’s laugh, gentle and quiet - but that’s all gone now, leaving it a shadow of its former glory. It’s quiet, empty. Wade feels like he’s visiting for the first time. Little eddies of cold wind keep brushing up whirlpools of old leaves on the doorstep, and he watches them idly as he waits.

_ Nelson, Murdock & Page _ looks different cast in moonlight.

It might be the tight grip of Elektra’s hands holding Wade’s wrists, or the cold air on his unmasked face, but something feels  _ off _ about the seeing of the building like this, alternately shadowed and cast in a chilly glow from street lamps. In the weeks before, the office had been characterized by warmth and occupation - the glow of sunlight trickling through the windows, the soft hum of the inner heating fighting against the chill of an open window, Matt’s laugh, gentle and quiet - but that’s all gone now, leaving it a shadow of its former glory. It’s quiet, empty. Wade feels like he’s visiting for the first time. Little eddies of cold wind keep brushing up whirlpools of old leaves on the doorstep, and he watches them idly as he waits.

Matt’s leaning into the cab to have a conversation with the cab driver, trying to pay him. The cabbie keeps refusing. “Not you, Mr Devil,” Wade hears him say, as he pushes away Matt’s money. “You don’t pay.”

Wade remembers when he’d tried to catch a ride in the Deadpool suit, how differently it had gone. He chuckles. This earns a violent shushing from Elektra, who tightens her grip on his wrist and jostles him, hard. “Shut  _ up _ , rat,” she hisses, from right behind his left ear.

Pricks of pain dot Wade’s hands as the blood flow is restricted. He wriggles against Elektra’s grip, earning a kick to the shin. “Fucker,” he hisses, hopping on one leg, and then kicks backwards towards her ankle in retribution. She moves too slow and wheezes in pain, so he takes advantage of her distraction to wrestle free.

“Down, dog,” Matt commands, closing the taxi door and turning. “I thought we said no fighting.”

Wade sourly rubs his aching wrists by means of a response.

Elektra grabs Wade’s shoulder and digs her nails in with unnecessary fervor. Matt approaches the office door and pulls a pair of keys from his suit pocket, pushing it into the lock only to stop and frown.

He pauses with his hand on the doorknob.

Elektra’s watches him for a long moment. “Matty?”

“Door’s unlocked,” Matt says. He’s tense. Shoulders drawn, jaw clenched. A moment before, he had been draped over the taxi door like a cat, comfortable and limber. The difference is startling.

“Matt,” Elektra prompts again, voice grown in intensity. 

Matt opens the door and shoves through into the darkness beyond. Elektra steers Wade through via the hand on his shoulder and kicks the door shut behind them, standing squarely in the waiting room of the office.

It’s so dark Wade can’t see what’s happened, at first. Matt is a horned silhouette ahead of him, standing in the darkness, breathing audible. Wade squints around.

Matt’s right. Something is wrong. Something is very, wildly wrong. The office is in shambles. The couch, already tattered, is kicked over. The lamp is shattered on the floor, painted bits of cheap plastic shattered under the lightbulb. The door ahead is half open, and Matt quickly steps through, shouldering it the rest of the way open.

Elektra’s hand falls, forgotten, from Wade’s shoulder. He steps free and through the door, into the main office.

It’s easier to see almost immediately. Moonlight filters through the windows, but that’s not why: the trash can, sitting by the receptionist’s desk, is set aflame. Old papers crackling and burning, a fire alarm hanging detached from the ceiling overhead. Glass from the shattered windows sprinkles the floor. The chair is on its side. Legal papers from the folders float along the ground, whisked about by the wind. The blinds are in a torn pile on the floor.

Matt shoves through the door into the conference room, Wade at his heels. The table is set on its side and the chairs askew, but he ignores this in favor of kneeling by the filing cabinet and opening the last drawer, pushing aside each of the files and searching through the drawer. 

He stops after a minute, breathing hard. His chin tilts up, towards Elektra. “The file,” he says. “The file is gone.”

“There are papers everywhere,” Wade says. “In one of tho-”

“ _ No _ ,” Matt growls. “I had it moved over. The day you were gone. Destroyed the paper files in favor of an encrypted hard drive - but it’s gone.”

There’s a long moment of silence, and then Elektra turns on Wade. She shoves him against the wall, hard, then pins him there with her forearm, force enough to bruise. She shoves her face so near his that her nose brushes with his scarred one and he deeply regrets not wearing the Deadpool mask.

“What did you  _ do _ ,” she snarls. “Where did you put it, who did you hire-”

“I had nothing to  _ do _ with this,” Wade says, incredulous. “I was with you the whole time, how would I-”

“Shut _up_!” She snaps. “I’m not falling for that. Tell me what the _hell_ you did with it, you-”  
The heavy sound of Matt’s voice brings her to silence. “He’s telling the truth, Elektra.”

She stutters to a halt, like a dancer missing a step in a waltz, thrown off balance. “Wh- he is?”

Matt, still crouched by the bottom drawer of the filing cabinet, sighs heavily and leans on the drawer to push himself upright. He steps around Wade, past Elektra, disappearing through the doorway.

“Matt,” Elektra calls, quickly following him. Wade stands in the doorway and watch. “Who did this? If it’s not Wilson, who - who else would have.”

“I don’t  _ know _ , Elektra,” Matt snaps. “Dozens of people. Hundreds. Half this city has a grudge against me. It’s down to who - who tracked me down. And if they found my office, that means-”

Matt stops short. His skin is tinted scarlet in the flickering light of the trash can, which is burning lower and dimmer every moment. Matt pats at his belt, rummages in a pocket for a moment, then digs out a burner phone.

“Matt,” Elektra says. She’s staring at the receptionist’s desk. There’s a piece of paper taped there, flickering in the cold wind from the window. She steps forward and peels it off, scanning it and then turning to Matt.

He shushes her immediately, clasping the phone to his ear. For a long few moments, he’s silent, and then all at once it’s like the tension rushes out of his body. His shoulders slump, and he gives a heavy sigh of relief, clasping the phone harder to his ear. His free hand cups the back of his neck and his chin tilts down.

“Hey,” he says. “Foggy. It’s good...It’s good to hear your voice.”

A beat. Wade’s chest does a funny little twisty thing, like it’s been wrenched. Who is Foggy, anyway? Stupid fucking name, Foggy. Kind of name a douchebag would have. 

“Are you okay? Where are you?” Matt breathes out. “Good, that’s good. Stay there, okay? No, I’m fine. Everything’s fine.”

Elektra is still clutching the paper, looking at the edge of her fraying patience. “ _ Matt _ ,” she hisses, “There’s a  _ note _ -”

Matt holds a hand to his lips to silence her and turns away, giving her the cold shoulder. “Just let me know,” he says. “If anything happens. Yeah? Yeah. Okay.” A beat. “Bye, Fogs.”

He hangs up and closes the phone with a sharp click. Elektra surges forward, note in hand.

“This was on the desk,” she says, holding it out. “It’s in braille.”

Matt takes it, rips a glove off, and runs his finger over the note. His jaw clenches.

“What does it say?” Wade asks, speaking for the first time in minutes. Matt’s jaw tilts up towards him.

“It says that Daredevil is dead,” Matt says, voice flat, “and if I contact the police they’ll burn the office down with me inside it.”

Elektra whirls, a snarl rising in her throat. “I  _ knew _ it,” she hisses. “I knew this was you. They hired you to kill him and went to silence the only possible witness, didn’t they - you set this up, you bastard-”

“I’m getting the sense you don’t like me very much,” Wade observes. He looks past Elektra’s looming figure at Matt, who has a small frown on his face, partially covered by the cowl.

“It doesn’t make sense, Elektra,” Matt says. “Wade’s telling the truth, and I’ve heard him lie plenty of times before - I know the difference. And they took the file.”

A cold creeps across Wade’s arms, leeching in from the window, and he rubs them self-consciously. They have the file. Whoever  _ they _ is. His employers, he supposes. But how could they have known? “Whoever this is isn’t working with Wade,” Matt continues. “But they clearly want the information on him, or they wouldn’t have taken the file.”

“I think the more relevant bit of information here is that they want you  _ dead _ , Matty,” Elektra counters.

“Yeah, yeah.” Matt waves it aside. “Not the point. Plenty of people want me dead. Wade, who exactly hired you to kill me?”

“Uh.” Wade swallows. “Someone?”

Matt’s frown deepens. “You don’t know.”

Wade’s silence is the answer.

Matt unlatches his helmet and lets the hand clutching it fall to his side as he runs a hand through his hair. “Fuck.”

“If I don’t contact them soon, they’re going to realize I didn’t kill you,” Wade says. “And then we’ll both be in trouble.”

“You’re already in trouble,” Elektra says sharply, giving him a cold look through narrowed eyes. 

Matt shushes her -  _ shushes her! _ \- and folds his arms. “And what sort of message are they expecting?” He asks Wade. “Just a confirmation you got the job done?”

“Pictures,” Wade says bluntly. 

A gust of wind comes from the shattered window and Matt tips his head into it, hair ruffling. “We can’t fake a body.”

“Would need a pretty elaborate prop,” Wade agrees.

A smile starts to spread across Elektra’s face. Wade takes a step back.

“I think we can figure something out,” she says, looking Wade dead in the eyes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> dramatic pacing? proper editing? consistent characterization? who's she lol
> 
> anyway leave comments bc i devour them like a bog monster slurping up algae


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They return to the office. It’s untouched. The paisley floor, the neatly ordered desk, the shattered window - all as Wade left it. The guard still safely sheltered in the closet, locked and tied in place - Wade peers under the door as they pass by, to check he’s still unconscious.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning! This chapter has a bit more gore than the last two; there's a mild description of someone getting shot in the head and mention of blood. If that's potentially triggering for you I'll put a synopsis in the end notes.

They return to the office. It’s untouched. The paisley floor, the neatly ordered desk, the shattered window - all as Wade left it. The guard still safely sheltered in the closet, locked and tied in place - Wade peers under the door as they pass by, to check he’s still unconscious.

Matt strips down to his under-armor and Wade dons the Daredevil suit, strapping himself into the thick padding. It feels warm, thick, the cowl smelling faintly of Matt’s hair. More comfortable than he would have expected. 

Elektra fiddles with one of the confiscated pistols. It clicks softly as she reloads it, preps it. Matt takes several steps away, to the back of the room. 

Wade wouldn’t have thought him to be one to flinch from blood, but he huddles - visibly out of

place, clad in black fabric - by the doorway.

Glass crunches underfoot, grinding to dust, as Wade steps up to the window and leans on the pane. The night air caresses his jaw and he takes a long inhale that smells of cigarette smoke and autumn leaves. The sun is starting to rise on the horizon, announced only by a faint glow of auburn spilled across

the skyline, seeping between buildings. 

“Turn,” Elektra commands, voice emotionless. He complies. “Other way. Can’t see your face,” she explains.

“If you don’t find me attractive you can just say so, hun,” Wade quips, but he revolves to face away from her nonetheless. She lets out a hiss of air, annoyed, and there’s a click of the gun.

“Three,” she says. “Two. One.”

Bang.

Wade’s head explodes in on itself and he crumples forward. The paisley carpet is the last thing he sees. It hurts, but it always does. His mind leaves his body. He’s not dead, just taking a leave of absence. 

When he comes back to himself he feels groggy, slow. His head is pounding. There’s something warm below his ear, puddling around him, his shoulders. Someone’s talking, to his right. A conversation.

He tries to listen and his hearing fades in an out like the beat on a pop song.  _ Wubawubawuba _ . He pushes himself up onto his forearms and shakes his head, causing a splatter of warm liquid to come from his ear.

He shakes it again like a swimmer after submersion, then glances down. There’s a large puddle of blood under where his head had been laying, slowly seeping into the carpet. His hearing is clearer, now. He rolls onto his side.

Matt and Elektra are standing huddled across the room, holding his phone. Elektra pauses mid-sentence upon seeing Wade awake and gives him a pointed look.

“Having too much fun without me?” He purrs, trying for seductive and instead sounding slightly drunk, words slipping and sliding over each other.

Matt frowns at him. Wade looks away, then pushes himself up into a seated position and tries to wipe some of the blood off his forearms onto the Daredevil suit. It’s going to be stained for weeks. He touches the back of his head lightly, where the bullethole clips just at the bottom of the cowl, leaving a small half-crescent hole at the seam. The skin there is still open, raw, throbbing as it knits itself together.

“Still a little punch-drunk,” Wade explains, when they keep looking at him - Matt with mild confusion verging on concern; Elektra with a wrinkled nose, like he’s roadkill still twitching where it lays. “Phew, that gives a hell of a kick, Natchios. I think I’ve had something like it at a rave before. Leaves you real shaky, right?” He chuckles. 

Neither of them respond in kind. Instead, Elektra flips him the phone screen and quirks an eyebrow.

He squints. There’s a picture, there, prepped to send to his employer. It’s him, sprawled forward on the carpet, face forward, a puddle of blood around the wound at the bottom of his head. With the Daredevil armor, he looks indistinguishable from Matt. The image makes his stomach turn. 

“Looks ‘bout right,” he says, voice cheery despite itself. 

Elektra taps the screen to send it.

There’s a long pause after the delivery beep. Elektra looks at Wade, and then Matt.

“What now?” Wade asks.

“We have to find out who these people are,” Elektra declares. “I have connections, I’ll pull strings, figure things out - Matt can come with me, undercover, I can ask around with the local crime bosses.” her eyes are glittering. “I have a suit you can borrow. We’ll disguise you as my security guard. Like we used to, Matt, before everything-”

“No.” Matt’s quiet, almost gentle. 

Elektra drags to a halt, balancing on the knife-point that is the next word for a long moment before stuttering to silence. She blinks at him, eyes large and doleful. “I- What?”

“I’m not doing that, Elektra,” he says. “I’m not getting involved with that. We had our time. But not - not now, not anymore. You need to go.”

The shock on her face dissolves from confusion to anger. Her eyes narrow. “I’m not  _ leaving _ , Matt, not  _ now, _ not with you in danger-”

“The immediate danger is gone, Elektra,” he cuts in. “I’ll figure the rest out. I always do.”

“You always  _ do? _ Matt, the last time I left you - I saved you by that riverbank and a month later you were a fugitive, people thought you were dead, Wilson Fisk tried to have you gutted and roasted over a goddamn campfire-”

“Well he  _ didn’t _ , Elektra, and no thanks to you.” Matt’s gentle tone from earlier is quickly fading. “I made my decision then and I’m keeping it now. I won’t work with you, not like - not how you’re suggesting. You need to go.”

Elektra reaches for him, and he steps away so quickly that she flinches and pulls back her arm. She looks away, eyes glimmering. She seems to know she’s crossed some kind of line. The hard set to Matt’s jaw says this is a confrontation long in the coming. Wade, so custom to worming himself into situations uninvited, still manages to feel like a voyeur; the moment feels so personal that it throws how out of place he is into sharp relief.

“Let me help,” she says softly. “Please. Just - I care about you, Matt. I can’t watch you take this on alone.”

Matt tilts his head down, eyes half closed. He looks small, all of the sudden. Tired, as he had been in that first moment of realization, when Wade had finally parsed the evidence linking him and Daredevil for what it was. “If you care about me,” he says, after a long pause, “Take care of the people I love. They hold more of me than I ever could. Foggy’s in Norfolk, with an aunt. Don’t approach him. He doesn’t need - he doesn’t deserve that.”

“Karen?” Elektra asks.

“With Frank,” he murmurs.

Elektra nods, looking at him for a long moment. There’s something troubled in her gaze, even mourning, as though in grief for something lost. She reaches for him again, and this time he doesn’t step aside. 

She kisses him once on the cheek before pulling away. There’s a blur of movement, a clinking of glass underfoot, and she’s plunging from the open window, out of the building as quickly as she’d entered, without a goodbye.

A clatter. Wade’s phone, dropped by the window. He steps into the puddle of broken glass to pluck it from the floor, swiping it open. There’s a new message, from his employer.

**$$$$$:** Payment will be handed over tomorrow at midnight tomorrow, on a yacht, moderately sized, named the  _ Lazarus _ . Will be placed near the Lincoln Tunnel. Be by the river and we’ll find you.

Of course they have a yacht. Of-fucking-course. Wade bites his lip, hard, and looks up at Matt.

Matt’s standing by the wall, apparently oblivious to Wade’s discovery. His chin is tilted up and he’s silent, apparently in thought. His face holds echoes of the same mourning look Elektra had gotten before her swift departure.

“Hey, uh, Matt,” Wade says, trying to muster his usual cheery disposition. He still feels the lingering out-of-placeness that the scene between Matt and Elektra had summoned. He waves the screen of the phone at Matt only to realize the gesture’s pointlessness and drop his hand. “Good news, we’ve got another missive from our close good friends, they want me to meet them on a skeevy rich douchebag boat at midnight tomorrow.”

Matt drops his head to face Wade and his slight frown deepens. “A boat? Where?”

“Hudson. Off the Lincoln Tunnel.”

“Absolutely not,” Matt says. “You’ll get captured in a half-second. It’s not safe.”

“I’m touched, I didn’t think you cared so deeply for my well-being,” Wade crows. He kicks at the puddle of blood from his now-healed head wound for emphasis.

“You clearly have some kind of value to these people, or they wouldn’t have taken your file,” Matt says bluntly. “I’m not giving them what they want.”

“Okayy.” Wade scratches the back of his head only to wince upon finding the skin still tenderized and bloody, mask torn open. “Then what are you  _ suggesting _ ? Because I don’t hear any new ideas, darling.”

Matt flinches, so quickly it’s barely noticeable, before quickly slipping back into his composed demeanor. Wade glances around, looking for the cause of the distress, but finds nothing. Perhaps Matt’s composure is just slipping after a long day and the stress of dealing with Elektra.

“Look, I don’t. I’ll think about it,” Matt says, sighing heavily and running a hand through his hair. “Maybe if you had a recorder - I don’t know. It’s not like you can die, I suppose. I’ll think about it. Let’s go back to my apartment and I’ll figure something out. Always do.”

“Always do,” Wade echoes. He slips his phone into his pocket. All the better, too - somewhere, locked in the darkness a closet, the security guard is likely waking, and he’ll have a killer headache.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Synopsis: They fake Daredevil’s death. This is done by returning to the office, putting the Daredevil helmet on Deadpool, and having Elektra shoot Deadpool and take pictures to send as proof. Once Deadpool recovers, they send the pictures to his employer. Then, Matt tells Elektra to leave and, rather than helping them directly, keep an eye on Foggy (from a distance) to make sure he’s alright. (He says Karen will be find - she’s with Frank.) After Elektra leaves, Employer responds by giving an address and time for their next meeting. Said address and time is a boat named Lazarus near the river shore at midnight tomorrow. Matt says they'll go to his apartment and figure it out.
> 
> Please leave comments if you enjoyed because I devour them like a cryptid monching on mushrooms in a cave.


	11. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Matt’s apartment is on fire. Under water. Lopsided and shattered to pieces. They should have seen it coming, Wade supposes, but it still feels like a blow. Matt’s jaw clenches tight as soon as he senses what’s happened.

Matt’s apartment is on fire. Under water. Lopsided and shattered to pieces. They should have seen it coming, Wade supposes, but it still feels like a blow. Matt’s jaw clenches tight as soon as he senses what’s happened.

They enter through an unlocked window, scuttling through like insects. The lights are off, but the neon glow of a billboard just outside the window intermingles with the soft, smokey fog of an expired trash can fire by the kitchen counter, creating a purple haze that settles throughout every corner. Matt steps from the window to the couch, flipped on its side and scratched down the back, and coughs.

Wade feels the impulse to say something comforting. “Cute place,” he offers. “Real nice, lots of character.”

“This isn’t funny,” Matt growls. He steps over an upturned stool into the kitchen. “They know my apartment, Wade. Whatever this is, it’s dangerous, and it’s in my home.”

“I wasn’t trying to be funny,” Wade says. It’s true, and very out of character. He makes a mental note to be more blase about such events in future, lest his only personality trait fade from view. 

Matt ignores him and draws a glass of water. He chugs it with such ferocity Wade’s surprised the glass doesn’t crack. Setting it firmly on the counter, he leans forward onto the granite and lets his head sag forward slightly.

Wade senses a lack of camaraderie between the two of them and sets about trying to be helpful. He rights the couch - oh, could Matt only see and appreciate the not-insignificant bulge of muscle such an effort brings to Wade’s biceps - and scoots the table back into place. When he glances up from this endeavor, Matt is still looking gloomy.

A change of subject, Wade decides, would be the best step forward. He settles cross-legged on the couch, nevermind the scratch of the cotton stuffing through the Deadpool suit (he’d re-exchanged wardrobes with Matt, once their escapade into creative photography had been finished) and looks at Matt.

“We need a plan,” he announces.

Matt gives him a expression of such withering disbelief that a part of Wade’s soul shivers in fear. 

“I’m just saying,” he defends.

Matt’s expression of distaste perseveres.

“Look,” Wade says. “I’m getting the sense you don’t like me very much.”

He pauses, unsure of what to add. What is there? It isn’t like Matt’s disapproval wasn’t wholly warranted. Wade had been plotting his murder, a few mere chapters before. But such is the way of things; Wade doesn’t hold grudges. He meets most of his friends via attempted murder. It comes with the life.

Wade is about to open his mouth to explain this to Matt when there comes a quiet thump from behind him and a gasp.

He turns to find Spider-Man perched precariously in the window-sill, black suited eyes wide and quivering in disbelief. He’s hunched there, far too large for the claustrophobic opening, his crouch blending with the hazy darkness to make him seem, for a moment, genuinely more spider than man - limbs bent at unholy angles, hands grasping the window-sill, shadow adding an element of ambiguity to his form. 

Wade shrieks and toppled from the couch. By the time he’s righted himself Spider-Man is standing by the sill like a proper human, hands outstretched towards Wade. There’s a quiet hiss, and Wade feels something cold hit him in the chest with such force he’s shoved backwards onto the table. An effort to right himself is met by the sensation of tight threads pinning his arms in place.

“Motherfucker, not  _ again,”  _ he complains.

Spider-Man vaults over the couch back to crouch on the cushion. He yanks on the cord of web wrapped around Wade’s stomach, yanking him closer until his face is a foot or so from Spider-Man’s wide black eyes, and seems to inspect him for a moment, pinning Wade with a sharp gaze. 

“Personal space, dude,” Wade says.

Spider-Man glances up. His movements are eerily sharp, instantaneous, like a bug twitching. Something about the darkness in the apartment makes the inhumanness of it unnervingly apparent. He’s staring at Matt, now, suit eyes narrowing.

“You need some pest control, Double-Dee,” he says. “Seems like your apartment’s got a rat problem.”

“Oh, fucking hell, I’m supposed to be the one with the funny quips,” Wade complains, and thrashes sharply in Spider-Man’s grasp. Spider-Man lets him fall back against the coffee table, where he slides to the ground and leans back against the wood, immobilized.

“Let him go, Spider-Man,” Matt says gravely. He sounds closer, like he’s stepped out of the kitchen. “He’s supposed to be here.”

“Funny thing about that,” Spider-Man says, lips audibly quirking. “See, I seem to recall you saying something about how you  _ weren’t wrapped up in any trouble _ \- and here I am in your apartment, and not only is it in wreckage, but I’ve got trouble wrapped up right here and you don’t seem too concerned.”

“Wade didn’t do this,” Matt says. It’s only half true, Wade thinks. In a way of looking at it Wade caused all this mess. “He’s helping me fix it.”

“Okay, bud,” Spider-Man says. “Sure. First name basis, huh. You know this guy almost killed me a few months ago? Busted into a den I was breaking up and almost bazookaed me into the fifth dimension.”

“Did not,” Wade responds, indignant. Spider-Man ignores him.

Matt gives a heavy, audible sigh. “Let him go, Spider-Man,” he says. “I’ll explain everything. I promise.”

Spider-Man tilts his head, looks down at Wade, and after a long moment of apparent thought, lets go of the rope connecting him and Wade with a flick of his hand. He clips a small metal canister free of the web-shooters at his wrist and tosses it onto Wade’s chest. “Dissolving acid,” he says, voice full of false cheer. “Have fun getting free.” He slaps Wade on the shoulder a bit too hard to be amiable and vaults over the kitchen table.

Wade shuffles a little, knocking the canister onto the ground next to his hand. He fiddles with it, rummaging for some kind of clasp, only for the canister to pop open and spill all of the acid onto the wood floor, hissing as it erodes the varnish. Huffing, he topples to the ground and wriggles around in the puddle of acid, feeling the tight webbing slowly loosen around his torso.

When he’s finally free, dignity significantly damaged, Wade hurdles to his feet, swaying slightly and rubbing at the indentations on his arms. Matt is standing by the counter, talking to Spider-Man in quick, hushed tones, while Spider-Man leans on the counter with one arm, head tilted. He’s rolled his mask up to his nose to breathe better through the smoke.

Wade steps closer. “-Not reliable, can’t trust him,” he hears Spider-Man say, right before glancing at Wade and letting his sentence slide into silence.

“I know,” Matt says, words ominously vague. 

“Watcha talking ‘bout, Matty?” Wade asks, eyes narrowing. The two of them look a picture of guilt, two unabashed conspirators caught in the act. Spider-Man is unphased. He flashes Wade a grin. 

“Good to see you up, buddy,” he says. “I don’t trust you and if you hurt my friend I’ll dropkick you so hard you land in a nuclear reactor with the doors set to lock for a half millennia, got it?” 

Wade once again gets the creeping sense that their little conspiracy is lacking in the interpersonal relations department. A little trust would go a long way, buddy.

He expresses this to Spider-Man and is met with the same unnervingly cheery disposition. “You want trust? I’ll show you trust,” Spider-Man says. “Let’s fix this place up. Takes real teamwork to clear out a mess like this.”

Acid soaks into Wade’s shoes. He shrugs.

~~~

Spider-Man has a lot of thoughts. It’s surprising, really, how different he is from Matt. No angsty silent hero here, no sir: Spider-Man has opinions, feelings. He’s funny, startlingly so, with a kind of wit that makes Wade feel a step or two behind every wry quip or subtle reference. It’s a rare feeling, to be the quiet one in a conversation.

They fix up the apartment little by little. Spider-Man debates with Wade on everything from the newest gossip about fellow vigilantes to DC comics’ status as a satiric commentary on the real world; the conversation slips and falls into an in-depth discussion of the movie Parasite, complete with Spider-Man providing Daredevil a thorough voice over description of every scene. Wade, who had gotten halfway through Parasite when an armed assassin burst through his window and shot his television, begins to feel lost around the bit about the peaches.

The apartment starts to come together. Spider-Man sweeps the glass from where a cup had been shattered in the kitchen. Wade helps Matt right the tables and chairs. They dispose of the garbage can full of ash and open a window to air out the smoke. It’s properly morning, by the time things are back to a decent excuse for order, and the cold morning air clears any remaining haze from the room along with a burst of dawn sunlight. 

This rush of clarity is accompanied by the realization that Wade hasn’t slept in several days. He usually doesn’t feel the impact of such a lapse, but something in the dull ache in his head where the last vestiges of his brain injury have just knitted themselves together is making him remarkably woozy. 

Matt’s standing in the kitchen, sipping a beer, while Spider-Man lays across the recently cleaned counter, revelling in the sunlight like a cat stretching out before a nap. Wade drapes himself onto the couch, burying the side of his masked face in the cushions.

“We still don’t have a plan,” Matt murmurs, and is met by silence.

Wade finds himself unable to give a fuck.

He drifts into sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ty for reading pls leave comments for me to slurp up, spaghetti style, like the loch ness monster snacking on eels


	12. Chapter 12

Spider-Man has connections.

Connections. That’s all he’ll say. Along with a wink - however he gets the mask to do that - and a vague flourish of the wrist. Just some people, here or there, he explains. Some sources who can help him help Wade help Matt. And he makes it abundantly clear helping Matt is all he’s here to do. One would think they got along, for all this emphasis, but no: the two clash like flint and steel. Spider-Man’s always flinging retorts, barbs, one-sided insults Matt’s way - as though he’s prodding Matt for a reaction, testing Matt’s limits. Trying to cross them, really, get some sort of reaction. Some sort of spark.

Matt remains docile through it all. He won’t fling back the quick-witted jibes and taunts, won’t rise to meet Spider-Man on the level he’s hoping. His interactions with Spider-Man remain calm, distant, as though he’s unwilling to wade through the waters of their apparent time spent separated and meet Spider-Man where they’d once been.

Spider-Man is peeved. Bothered. Upset at the best of times and positively simmering at the worst. He’s good at covering it up, all jokes and witty one-liners, charisma out the door, but a few years spent tricking marks into complacency before striking has taught Wade how to gauge how much fear of God a target’s been graciously gifted from heavens above, and Spider-Man is  _ anxious _ . Worry edges the cracks in his speech like mortar scraped on brick. Part of his body remains angled towards Matt at all times, as though worried turning away will let Matt slip away again, into the darkness and the unknown.

Matt tries a few times to send him away. “It’s dangerous,” he says. “I don’t want you wrapped up in whoever has the kind of power to pull off a stunt like this, Spidey. I don’t want you on their radar.”

“Then why’d you get wrapped up with them yourself, huh Matty?” Spider-Man flings back. Tone flinty at the edges. Waiting for a spark.

Matt doesn’t deliver. “You know I didn’t mean for this to happen, Spider-Man. But I don’t want to put you in danger.”

Spider-Man’s jaw tightens for a long moment. He’s perched on the back of the couch, where Wade had been napping a few moments before, but he slides off the side and to his feet.

Wade, standing in the kitchen with a beer, steps behind Matt.

“Look, Matt,” Spider-Man says. “It’s been  _ weeks _ . Weeks of you knowing you were in imminent danger and not reaching out. I’m trying to understand. I really am. But when you - even after everyone here knows the kind of danger you’re in - continue to refuse any sort of  _ help _ \- I’m an adult now, Matt. I know I was a kid when you met me. But I’m in college, I’ve fought as many ne'er-do-wells as either of you combined and come out on top, and you  _ have to let me help you _ , Matt.”

“I’m not going to put you in danger,” Matt repeats.

Spider-Man takes a long breath in. “I’m  _ Spider-Man _ ,” he says. “My  _ life _ is danger. Either you’re going to let me help you, and we’ll take this on together, or I’ll do it without your help and put myself in even more risk.”

Matt’s silent for a long moment, chest rising and falling, chin tilted very slightly upwards.

“Matt,” Spider-Man prompts.

“Alright,” Matt says, reluctance heavy in his voice. “Let’s figure something out.”

They figure something out. Or Spider-Man does, at least. He has a friend, he says: Peter Parker, a ‘real cool dude’ who works for the Bugle as an investigative journalist. He has access to top-notch recording equipment. The kind of radio-powered stuff that could broadcast across a city, or, say, from a boat in the middle of the Hudson River.

“Hey, that the same Peter who came in and clowned around in Matty’s office a few weeks ago?” Wade asks.

“I don’t think it was  _ clowning around, _ per say,” Spider-Man objects.

Wade squints at him.

“Let’s focus,” Spider-Man says hastily. “Recording equipment. Gotta go. Be back in a few hours?”

“Be safe,” Matt says. Spider-Man salutes him and slips from the window into the noontime streets beyond. 

The microphone slips right under Wade’s spandex collar, leaving a trail of thin wire to the radio at his belt.

Matt holds the receiving end. They test it once, twice: the sun creeps lower on the horizon.

The river is cold at night, all chilly air whipped about and stinging the crease of skin between Wade’s mask and his collar. He takes a deep breath in that smells like brine and city air, muffled by thick cotton. 

There’s a boat floating on the river. On the side, in massive printed letters:  **_LAZARUS._ **

Masked men pull Wade aboard. Masked men close the dock behind him. Masked men retreat, to stand in the distance surrounding, lurking in the shadows.

Wade’s standing on a deck, ground slippery and cold, wind whipping his face. There’s a cabin on the side oppose the railing, dimly lit through shaded glass, and hanging from edges of the cabin roof are several cold LED lanterns. 

Wade stares into the darkened glass windows. The river roars around him.

A creak of a door, and a man approaches. He’s young, in his thirties at most, face cast into harsh lantern light. There’s an easy smile on his face and a suit like crisply folded origami, sharpening his figure against the backdrop of the cabin.

He smiles. 

A gust of wind runs its fingers along Wade’s neck, and he shivers.

“It’s good to finally meet you, Mr Wilson,” The man says. A voice that seems to smooth the roar of the very waves around it. “You can call me Orpheus.”

“A classic,” Wade denotes, his voice returning - creeping from his throat, almost unbidden. “Orpheus. There’s a musical about him, right? Don’t suppose you’ll grace me with a song?”

“I don’t, no,” Orpheus says, with a wide smile. “But perhaps you’ll find the reason I’ve invited you here to be theatrical enough. I don’t suppose you’ll accompany me into the cabin?”

“I don’t, no,” Wade says, and to his surprise, Orpheus shrugs.

“So be it. Perhaps you’re waiting for an explanation, first. As to why you’ve been asked along on this little visit.”

“Perhaps,” Wade echoes.

Orpheus slips his hands into his pockets. He seems ridiculously - infuriatingly - at ease. The river, around them, has settled, the wind died down: they are alone with their voices now, in the near-silence.

“I have Murdock’s file,” Orpheus says. “I have the contents therein. I took it from his office while you were preoccupied with his friend the Devil - good job with him, by the way. He wasn’t any danger at the time, but...it’s good to get ahead of these things while you still have the chance.”

“You know me,” Wade says. “A dance with the devil’s just my Tuesday evening.”

“Good, good.” Orpheus smiles. “I’m afraid we won’t be able to compensate you as foreseen. What can I say?” He shrugs. “The economy these days, not at its finest. But we’ve acquired...other means of persuasion, as I’ve just mentioned. The file Murdock amassed was quite impressive. Enough to shut your little operations down for good. Enough to bring the full weight of a dozen different countries down on your shoulders. A few hundred federal counts, maybe a dozen charges of terrorism...intimidating, really, what a man like Murdock can do when under duress.”

Wade narrows his eyes. “You were threatening him.” It’s a bluff, obviously, but he’s rather good at those.

“Oh, no, no,” Orpheus assures him. “We just made some...lucky predictions. That’s why we sent you his way, after all. We knew any attempts to target the Devil would ultimately result in you attracting the attention of Murdock,  _ especially _ if we got his darling Nelson mixed up with it all.”

“That’s why you kidnapped him,” Wade guesses. “That time by the dock.”

Orpheus tips his head in confirmation.

“Motherfucker,” Wade swears. “Bitch. I had to go for a swim in the fucking Hudson, because of you. You fucked up the whole operation.”

“Apologies,” Orpheus says, smiling, “But it worked out as planned, did it not? Murdock became suspicious, and in doing so created the ultimate weapon. The only thing we could use against a man like you. Do you know how hard you are to pin down, Wilson? You can’t die, you can’t be injured, you have a frankly  _ concerning _ lack of regard for your own pain - and there’s no one you love still there to threaten, or kidnap, or torture. But we found something that would do the trick, in the end. Not even a man like you wants to spend his eternity in a lockdown prison in the Arctic.”

“Eh, I think I could make do,” Wade says. “Just need to learn to ice skate, first.”

“I’m afraid that won’t be an option,” Orpheus says. “You see, I’m working on something  _ very _ special. The kind of technology that would change the  _ world _ , Wilson, and rewrite our entire future. And you…. you just happen to be the key. The puzzle piece. The petri dish into which the penicillin will fall. ”

“Gee, buddy, if you like me you can just say so.”

No reaction. “I’d like you to come with us, Wilson. We have some very special things planned...experiments we’ve been designing for  _ years _ . And it’s never worked. Never quite fit together. All the other people, everyone we experimented on-”

Orpheus cuts himself off. Sighs heavily.

“You’re different, Wade. You could be the key to finding it all. You can help us. You  _ have _ to help us.”   
  


A lab rat. That’s what he is. A lab rat in a cage. 

“And if I say no?”

Orpheus smiles. Shrugs. “I’m sure the Arctic is lovely this time of year.”

Wade backs up. Glances around. They’ve moved, away from shore, into the river. Around them, black ink waves splash and burble, heralding a cold and uninviting darkness.

“There’s no escape,” Orpheus says. “We’re far from shore. This is it, Wilson. This is the end of the road.”

“Buddy, I think you underestimate me,” Wade comments, looking back at Orpheus. “Fuck that noise. This may be the end of the road, but I’ve got some trails and I’m ready to hike.”

Orpheus looks at him with a face twisted up in confusion. Finally, a human reaction. “That makes no se-”

Wade interrupts him by taking a running leap over the yacht railing. 

For the second time in a month, the cold night river greets him with open arms. 

He lets himself sink. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> no this wasn't edited and yes i am sorry it's late and no i don't really like it either but yes i'm gonna post it anyway because no i don't really have the energy to rewrite it and ughhhhhhhhhhh
> 
> anyway send comments so i can cronch them like the mothman snacking on bridges. i am finally at 100 comments so it'd be a shame if someone were to upset that balance >:)


	13. Chapter 13

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “It’s not sewage,” he defends, which is such a low bar it actually makes the situation worse.

“I cannot _believe you_ , Wilson.”

Spider-Man is displeased. Very displeased.

“I give you _hundred dollar equipment_ , I spent hours helping you adjust it, and what do you do? You dive in a fucking _lake_. First thing. Just go for a nice swim, and then we have to dig you out of the Hudson with an eel round your ankle - Jesus Christ, you’re gonna get me fired.”

Wade is very cold. The Deadpool suit is very cold. He debates the merits of stripping to his socks. “Why would I get you fired? It’s not your equipment, it’s Parker’s.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Spider-Man snaps. “Parker, me, whatever, point being I gave you hundreds of dollars of equipment and you just - Jesus christ, I mean a little rain it can handle, but you had to do a cannonball, didn’t you? Just had to. Couldn’t help yourself. The fuck am I supposed to tell my boss?”

“I thought it was Parker’s boss.”

“Whatever.” Spider-Man unhooks the last of the waterlogged equipment from Wade’s suit with a yank and inspects it. 

Wade is standing in a puddle of muddy brown water in the middle of Matt Murdock’s apartment. It’d taken him an hour to get out of the Hudson. They’d been waiting when he arrived. Matt is slumped on the couch, head in his hands, but it’s not enough to trick Wade into thinking he’s not paying attention.

“It’s not like I _wanted_ to dive, you know. I mean, you heard that jackass go on and on, he was gonna go psycho on my ass and poke me with needles-”

“You could endure a few needles, Wade,” Spider-Man snaps. “Just a few. Here and there. If it means not getting me _fired_. Dear God I mean my boss hates me already.”

“Not your boss, Spidey,” Matt corrects, speaking for the first time in minutes. “Parker’s boss. Not yours. Capiche?”

Spider-Man gives him a glare from behind the mask eyes, then shrugs and goes back to investigating the waterlogged recorder.

“And Wade is right,” Matt says, head still tilted towards the floor. His hands are buried in his hair, and Wade suddenly has to resist the urge to reach out and touch it. It looks so soft, when not dampened from the helmet or slicked back for work. “He had to get out of there, and options were limited. Couldn’t just make a run for it, and couldn’t let them capture him. The latter could’ve been catastrophic.”

“We had trackers, Matt, what could they have done?”

“They were on a boat, Spidey,” Matt says. “Do you own a boat? How would you plan to catch up with them? The last thing we need is to give these people exactly what they want.”

“And I’m not going to let them experiment on me to give you a leg up on capturing them,” Wade says, voice quiet. “I’ve lived through more than enough of that. It’s not on the table.”

Spider-Man is silent for a long moment, studying him. Wade feels smaller, pinned under the black suit eyes. He distracts himself by stripping off his gloves and rolling up his sopping wet sleeves, leaving his arms exposed.

Spider-Man sighs, then drops the equipment onto the kitchen table and picks up the other item there - a black recorder, borrowed from Matt’s office. 

“Good news is we still have the recording,” he says. “And the name of the boat. They didn’t think you’d have backup so they might not have been so careful with that bit. And I happen to be rather good at investigative journalist, whaddya know.”

“You think you can find something?” Matt asks.

“I think I can try,” Spider-Man replies. “If I go I go to the office again we’ve got better sources there - and I might be able to fake some sort of tech accident with this recorder.... If I can think of a reason for half Hudson to have spilled into the Bugle third story. Sewage break? Should I open a pipe? Maybe if I really _really_ clog a toilet-”  
“Whatever you think would be best, Spidey,” Matt interrupts. “Just - be back soon. I don’t know how long we have until these people start tracking Wade down.”

“Is now a good time to mention they texted me?” Wade asks.

Both of them give him venomous looks.

“They. What?” Spidey asks.

“They texted me,” Wade says. He picks up his phone from the table. “I kept meaning to tell you two, honest, but you kept going back and forth and I just couldn’t find a time and I always get notes about interrupting people - Cable almost took my head off last time, can you believe the nerve of that guy? He really has it out for me, barely seems to realize that without me he’d not be getting a movie at all - I mean they’re not really into old fashioned X-Men movies these days and he’s just a side character in my movies so I don’t know what he expects to happen if he punts me into the Pacific -”

“ _Wade_ ,” Matt grunts.

“Right,” Wade coughs. “They texted me thirty minutes ago and said I had twenty four hours to return to the boat before they, uh, sicced the Feds on me.”

“That would have been good to know before, Wade,” Matt growls, standing abruptly and brushing himself off. “ _Really_ good to know. Peter, you need to go. Do what you need to do and get back here as soon as possible, okay?”

“Roger that,” Spider-Man says, and salutes before seizing the microphone equipment from the table. “Be back in thirty minutes, don’t burn the place down without me.”

He gives an exaggerated wink and runs at the window - a wisp of movement and he’s gone.

There’s a long silence as Matt picks up a glass of water from the table and finishes it off. Wade watches him, half forgetting Matt can hear his attention.

“What?” Matt asks, tilting his head at Wade.

“I have a question,” Wade says. “Two, actually.”

Matt runs his free hand through his hair and gives an exhausted sigh. “Fine,” he says, weary. “Shoot.”

“Is Spidey Peter Parker?”

Matt’s fist clenches on his glass so abruptly it cracks in two. The bottom half plunges to the ground and shatters.

“Um,” Wade says. “Gonna...take that as a yes.”

“How did you know?” Matt asks, through gritted teeth. He’s still clenching the other half of the glass. “Did you - have you been stalking him too? How long have you known? If you go after him, Wade, I swear to God - if you’ve been following him like you have me-”

“You, uh, just said it,” Wade says. “Just now. You called him Peter.”

“Fuck.” Matt’s tilts his head up, breathing quickly. “Fuck, I shouldn’t have done that.” 

“It’s okay, I pretty much figured,” Wade responds quietly. “He’s not a very good liar.”

“One of the things I couldn’t teach him,” Matt murmurs. Wade notices a trail of blood on his hand, slowly trickling from where he’s clenching the shattered glass. He swallows, and steps forward.

“Matt, you’re, uh,” Wade gestures. “You should set that down, okay? And don’t - you’re barefoot, don’t cut your feet-”

“Fuck,” Matt mutters again, and sets the other half of the glass on the table. There’s a deep gash on his hand, quickly welling with blood. “I left the bandages on the counter, could you-”

Wade scans the counter and spots a white roll of bandages sitting there. He picks it up, but holds it out of Matt’s reach. “Nuh-uh, I know how wounds work, gotta clean that before I’m giving this to you.”

Matt vaguely mutters an insult his way, but seems to agree, because he steps around the couch and into the kitchen. Wade follows him in and stands a few steps behind as Matt cleans his hand off in the sink. The only sign that it stings is a slight tension in Matt’s shoulders, visible under his black undershirt.

As soon as Matt’s done he tries to take the bandage. Wade holds it out of reach again. “Nope,” he says, clasping it behind his back. “Not doing it yourself one-handed, devilboy. Just cuz I don’t bother doesn’t mean I don’t know how to bandage a wound.”

Matt gives him a _look_. Not with his eyes, of course, but Wade can read him like a book - he can tell Matt’s thinking, listening. His expression is something between confusion and reluctance. As though he’s not sure why Wade would offer to help him, but he’s not sure he should accept the offer.

That stings a bit. But Wade lets it slide. Matt looks awfully pretty when he’s thinking, anyway - his face is cast half in purple from the billboard, giving him a pale ghoulish look, and his brow is furrowed just slightly. He still looks more relaxed than he had in that office building, despite the faint distrust visible in his expression.

Eventually, Matt holds out his hand. Wade wraps the gauze around it - touching Matt only lightly, aware he’s treading the line of trust so thinly veiled between them - then tapes it with a roll from the counter. Matt touches it lightly afterwards, as if testing it, but seems to find it sufficient, for he leaves it be.

“You had another question,” Matt says. A statement, not a request. Wade’s almost startled to hear a voice cutting through the silence of the apartment.

“Uh, yeah.” Wade coughs, clears his throat. “Do you have a dryer?”

Matt does have a dryer. He also has a collection of identical black sweatpants and shirts that he’s willing to let Wade borrow. They’re a little tight, but they do the trick - and if they show off Wade’s abdominal muscles a little better than the average shirt, well, he’s not complaining.

Peter’s late by exactly fourteen minutes. And he’s covered in water.

“It’s not sewage,” he defends, which is such a low bar it actually makes the situation worse. “It’s just tap water. I had to come up with a reason for the equipment closet to be waterlogged, so I just put everything but your equipment on the top shelf and then messed with some of the exposed pipes - but it turns out those flood way faster than I thought so I had to use some tampons to plug it up and then leave a note saying it was a criminal who broke in and hurt the pipe and Spider-Man stopped him and is very sorry he broke the pipe in the equipment bathroom and then I had to clear the security tapes so they didn’t see me fake the whole thing.”

“You were gone for forty five minutes,” Matt says flatly.

“Yeah, sorry I was late,” Peter apologizes.

“So I take it you didn’t have any time for proper _research_ ,” Matt continues.

“What?” Peter sounds startled. “Of course I did, what do you mean? All that only took like, ten minutes, I got everything we need.”

“You-” Wade stops and squints at Peter. “There’s toilet paper on your foot.”

“Heck,” Peter mutters, and kicks his heel at the floor an an attempt to dislodge it. 

“You got everything you need,” Wade continues, “In forty five minutes? And staged then reversed a crime? And flooded your workplace?”

“It’s not my workplace, it’s Peter Parker’s workplace,” Peter defends. “I’m not Peter Parker.”

“We’ll talk about that later,” Wade says. “Point being. You got what we need?”

“Yeah,” Peter says, then visibly grins. “You ever gone hiking?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> guys peter's trying his best rn. he really is. also leave comments for me to chomp on like the yeti eating wild goats because my space bar broke halfway through this and i had to hammer it for five minutes every time i wanted to space it made me cry


	14. Chapter 14

They end up on a bus.

Wade _hates_ buses. 

He tells as much to Peter, who brushes him aside. Something about _the greater good_ and _suck it up, Wilson, or you’re going in the luggage bin._

The luggage bin might be preferable. Wade’s back in the Deadpool suit, and Peter’s wearing only a hoodie and tennis shoes over the Spidey suit, so at first, the other occupants of the bus keep casting dirty looks their way. Wade barely resists the urge to flip them off and vault through a window.

Peter takes it much more gracefully. Ten minutes in and he’s already given up his seat for three separate old ladies, helped a little girl pull her luggage onboard, and been given music recommendations by a friendly goth teenager. 

“We should’ve taken a taxi,” Wade whines, as soon as Peter’s back in his seat. The three of them have carved out a space at the back of the bus, where Wade’s sprawled across three separate seats and Matt’s sitting quietly with his head tilted back against the window glass. 

“I’m having a great time,” Peter says. “Maybe if you were politer and didn’t hog the seats things would be going better for you. Kaitlyn might let you share their earbuds if you asked nicely.” 

Wade glances at goth teenager Kaitlyn and decides against it. 

“Remind me why we’re here again,” he says, leaning his head back onto one seat. At least the chairs are cushioned.

“Because you didn’t seem to fancy letting this _Orpheus_ chap take you in for experimentation,” Peter drawls, and kicks at Wade’s legs. He pulls them up slightly, allowing Peter to sit on one of the seats. “And unless you want to walk all the way to their secret hideout, bus it is.”

“I can think of some alternatives,” Wade mutters, thinking of the various times his guns had bought him free transportation. Something tells him Peter and Matt wouldn’t be up for that. And Wade needs their help, however little he wants to admit it. Peter was the one who’d tracked down Orpheus’s home, near a mountain retreat north of New York City. (Peter had shown them the map, back in Matt’s apartment, on a laptop. “I used the boat to track it down,” he explained. “Tracked down the guy they bought it from online and called him. He didn’t want to tell me until I threatened him with jail time for aiding and abetting - something tells me the guys who bought it weren’t too friendly.”)

“Oh, stop whining,” Peter says, and returns to staring dreamily out the window.

~~~

Three hours pass, and Wade comes to sincerely regret not bringing anything to do. On the bright side, Kaitlynn does let him share their earbuds, and they have _excellent_ taste in rock music. 

Politics wise, though, their arguments could use some perfecting; they make excellent points, but they need to put some _oomph_ in it. “Don’t get me wrong, I agree with you, Katy, our voting system is absolutely skewed against poorer constituents and minorities - it’s just, from a debate perspective,” Wade tells them, laying on his back across three chairs with his boots propped on the barrier at the end of the row, “you gotta be louder, boo, don’t be afraid to assert yourself. You know you’re right, so act like it!”

He catches Matt’s head tilting his way - eyebrow raised over the glasses, as if in reaction - and blows a kiss. Matt turns his head away, but not before the ghost of what looks like a smirk flickers across his face.

“I get off at this stop,” Kaitlynn says thirty or so minutes later, when the bus grinds to a halt. Wade fistbumps them as he helps get their luggage down from the rack.

“Good luck with the audition, hun,” he calls, and they wave at him over their shoulder before disappearing into the night.

Because it _is_ night, Wade realizes. Somehow the sun crept of view and he hardly noticed. He checks the time on his phone and sees it’s almost midnight - and he has a text.

It’s from his employer.

48 hours before he returns to the Lazarus, or they release the files.

“I always hated countdowns,” Wade mumbles to himself. “Lazy fucking plot device for assholes.”

He makes his way to the back of the bus, tucking his phone back into a pocket. Matt’s asleep, head slumped back, chest rising and falling. Peter’s leaning against the barrier with his feet up on the chair, scrolling through his phone.

“Spidey,” Wade says. “How much longer?”  
“Hour an a half or so,” Pete says. “You seem to be having a good time.”

“I think Katy and I made some real progress,” Wade agrees. “On both sides. They’ve got some great points about the value of stats and sources whereas I usually just cuss people out - you’re smirking at me under that mask, aren’t you?”  
“No,” Peter denies, but Matt can hear him smiling. 

Wade sighs and flings himself down at the very back row - adjacent to Peter and Matt, who sit at opposite rows. He eyes Peter for a long moment, and crosses his arms.

“Spidey,” he says. 

Peter looks at him. 

Wade looks back. It’s dark, but Peter’s still illuminated in the neon light from his phone; the bus is empty now, save for the driver and an old man by the doorway. Music plays softly over the speakers, muffling any conversation.

“I know you’re Peter Parker,” Wade says.

Peter stiffens. The black pupils of his mask dilating. He’s still for a moment, then slowly leans back.

“Guess you were bound to figure it out,” he says. “Even if - I mean. Look. I still don’t trust you, Wade. I like you, but - you tried to kill Matt.”

“I know,” Wade responds, watching moonlight shadows dance on the bus floor. “I regret that.”

“But you still did it.”

“I did,” Wade agrees. “I did that to a lot of people. Bad people, mostly.”

“There’s no such thing as bad people, Wade,” Peter says quietly. “There’s just people. And nothing justifies murder.”

“Yeah.” Wade looks back up at him. “Yeah.”

Peter watches him for a long moment.

“I think people can improve, Wade,” Peter says. “Doesn’t matter who they are. Everyone can improve if they’re given a chance. But you have to try. You have to be ready to try, you know? I don’t know if you’re ready.”

“I don’t know either,” Wade murmurs.

“Okay. Okay. Just - look, Wade. I’m here, on this mission, because Matt is in danger. These people tried to kill him. And they’re not the first, and I sincerely doubt they’ll be the last, but - if you take anything away from this mission, I hope it’s that if you ever, _ever_ hurt Matt again, I will be the first fucking person knocking on your door. I will make sure you never see the light of day again. I believe in second chances, third chances, a lifetime of do-overs - but there are some lines you don’t cross. Matt’s one of mine.”

Peter’s black suit eyes feel as though they’re burning holes through Wade’s suit. His voice is deadly serious, and hearing it without its usual note of humor sends shivers down Wade’s spine.

“Yeah,” Wade says. “Yeah. I know. Can I ask you something?”

“Shoot,” Peter responds.

“How’d you even know Matt?”

“Ohh, that’s a good story.” Peter sounds like he’s grinning; the deadly note is gone from his voice. “Well, a whole series of ‘em, to be honest. I was - what, sixteen? When I started out as Spider-Man, you know? Lil baby Peter Parker, no clue what I was doing, kept fucking up. Tony Stark tried to help me out, for a while there. Tony’s a great guy, but - well. He didn’t get what it was like, you know?”

“And what is it like?”

Peter lets out a long breath. “It was… well, it was harder back then, I think. When you’re a lone vigilante, just focusing on crime - not supervillains or apocalypses or anything - when your main focus is the _little_ things, it’s so easy to get overwhelmed, you know? So easy to fall apart. Because there’s so much pressure. Once you find out you can fix a few of the bad things, it changes how you look at things. Because every time you see a bad thing, your thought isn’t _oh, that’s shitty_ but _oh, I could’ve fixed that. It’s my fault_. And it builds up, you know?”

Wade doesn’t know. He thinks that’s one of the fundamental differences between him and Peter, in the broad scheme of things; Peter is burdened by a constant responsibility. The sense that he has power over his surroundings, and with it, the sense that it’s his job to fix things. Whereas Wade - ever since he was a child - has been helpless, a witness to the world around him. Trapped as though watching behind glass, a figure in the window. From his father’s rages to his cancer to Vanessa's death.

Wade’s never been able to fix things. And at some point he gave up trying.

He wonders - what would have happened if he’d left that helplessness behind? Stopped acting as though killing for cash was the only thing he could do and taken it upon himself to fix things? Would he still be living in a shitty run-down apartment with rats under the furniture, with a whole fucking morgue of skeletons locked behind his closet doors?

Peter’s still talking. Dimly, Wade registers his story - about meeting Matt two years earlier, at seventeen, and Matt’s month-long string of efforts to convince Peter to quit working as a vigilante until at least old enough to vote. 

Wade brings his feet up onto the chair and rests his head on his knees. He lets Peter’s story wash over him, and outside, a midnight forest slowly rolls by.

New York City has never felt further away. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i am having,,, a time right now,, with the whole going into freshman year of high school w/ covid thing and also my brain is in a Place. i cannot think. so i'm sorry this is late and also unedited and possibly incoherent i can't tell. pls leave comments anyway for me to squish like a giant squid snacking on jellyfish bc they mean the world to me <3


	15. Chapter 15

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> By the time the bus grinds to a halt, it’s the early hours of the morning, and the three of them find themselves stumbling down the metal steps into a bus stop on the side of a small rest stop, blearily rubbing sleep from their eyes as the sun’s early vestiges reach their tendrils through the surrounding buildings.

By the time the bus grinds to a halt, it’s the early hours of the morning, and the three of them find themselves stumbling down the metal steps into a bus stop on the side of a small rest stop, blearily rubbing sleep from their eyes as the sun’s early vestiges reach their tendrils through the surrounding buildings. Beyond the gray streaks of concrete road marring the grassy fields, a distant pine forest crowds the horizon-line, and Wade stumbles past a row of grimy, technicolor gas pumps units to emerge through the doors of a 24 hour rest shop, blinking in awe at the rows of cheaply priced snacks like a newborn laying gaze upon the world for the first time. 

The employee behind the counter looks at Wade’s mask like he’s gone insane and puts his hands up like as though expecting a robbery. Wade is almost tempted to take him up on the offer, but he’s got a wad of soggy newly-dried bills in his pocket and Spider-Man just gave him this whole talk about being ready to try, so instead he gives the employee his winningest smile from behind the mask and slides over a bill without looking at the face of it.

The employee hesitantly lowers his hands and glances at the bill. He blanches, then looks back at Wade in surprise. Wade, who thought he’d been doing alright with the whole not-committing-armed-robbery thing, wonders where he’s gone wrong.

“This is a hundred dollar bill,” the man says. “Did you mean to, uh-”

“Keep the change,” Wade interrupts cheerily. “Just get me all the pretzels in that box there.”

When Wade emerges from the shop, he finds Matt leaning against the brick wall a few paces from the door. As Wade approaches, holding four pretzels in each hand and a spare under his arm, he tilts his head away, looking almost physically sick.

“You don’t have to look so sick, hun, I know I’ve not got the cleanest slate but you used to fuck Black Widow-”

“It’s not that,” Matt murmurs. “It’s just. This place. It’s a lot.”

Wade glances around at the vast parking lot, empty but for rows of pump stations and a single solitary man having a smoke by his pickup truck, and struggles to decipher Matt’s meaning.

“What,” he says. “The - is it the petrol? New York smells like petrol too.”

“No, not exactly.” The sun starts to rise over the trees, and a ray of light falls across Matt’s face, casting his hair into russet-gold. “It’s just new, I suppose. Hell’s Kitchen feels like white noise, at this point, easier to zone in and out of at will. This is newer, and so I can’t...parse it as easily. It’s so much new information at one time. And the smell of fried food doesn’t exactly help.”

Wade casts a guilty look down at his pretzels and shoves one into his mouth in an effort to quell some of Matt’s discomfort. A door swings behind him, and he glances around to see Peter strolling out of the station, holding a massive can of caffeinated soft drink. He glances around, spots the two of them, and walks over, snatching one of Wade’s pretzels as he comes to a halt.

“I think you made that employee very happy,” he informs Wade. “He mentioned your tip. And asked to take a selfie. Shame, because I haven’t brushed my hair.”

“You’re wearing a mask,” Matt points out.

Peter waves that aside with his can of soda, causing some of it to splash out onto the ground. “It still makes a difference, I can just _tell.”_

“Mm,” Wade hums. “Say, Peter, now we’ve stopped to chat, you happen to know where a man such as myself could find top-secret-supervillain-bases around these parts?”

Peter claps Wade on the shoulder hard enough to bruise. “Now that you mention it, in fact I _do!_ Should be-” he shields his eyes with his hand as though to check, swivelling his head around to face the distant pine forest. “Soooomewhere that way, yeah, just off a short hiking trail.”

“Hiking trail,” Matt repeats.

“Hiking trail,” Peter says, and he sounds like he’s grinning through the mask. He reaches back and slaps his backpack. “Now I bet you’re glad I brought your suit, hm?”

Matt is, indeed, glad Peter brought his suit. He doesn’t say so, but Wade, in all his intuitive genius, notices something in the way Matt moves once he’s changed in the shelter of the gas-station bathroom - it’s easier, less stiff, as though now he’s shedded his civilian clothes he can afford to relax slightly in the shelter brought by the cowl shielding his face. Slotted into his belt are his batons, which he - not as subtly as he thinks, Matt suspects - continually taps at as though in an effort to remind himself they’re there. 

Upon seeing Matt emerge from the gas station to stand in full Daredevil armor by the still-masked Spidey and Wade, the man taking a smoke by his pickup truck drops his cigarette, shakes his head, and drives away.

Peter has a map saved on his phone. He claims it’s a veritable map, at least - Wade can’t make the least sense of it, as all he can spot are a few nonsensical location names scattered among endless green-speckled forestation. Peter taps at a spot at the map and then points down the road, to a small office standing across the asphalt and built of bricks painted a sickly pinkish colour. 

The office - an insurance office, they realize after hiking across the road, deciphering as much from the signs plastered across the windows - is occupied by a sole woman, practically napping in her swivel chair. Peter taps her on the shoulder and asks for directions towards the local nature tail. She nearly falls flat out of her chair in her surprise at seeing another face so early in the morning, and blearily trudges out to the parking lot to point them towards a distant wooden sign standing across the field by the pine trees.

By the time they’ve hiked through yards of thick, tall golden grass to reach the mouth of the trail, there are burrs sticking to Wade’s suit pants. Peter strips his jacket off and stuffs it into his backpack, but leaves the tennis shoes in place, giving him an almost comically disproportionate appearance.

“I knew this was a trap,” Wade mutters. “You just pulled me out all this way because you wanted to take me hiking. At least let me get a romantic getaway in the woods out of all of this.”

“I have a death mansion,” Peter offers, glancing over his shoulder. He’s already started off onto the worn dirt trail. “Only the next-best thing, I’m afraid.”

Ah, hell. It’ll do.

It takes them an hour to reach their destination. They almost miss it, at first, only a tiny trail branching off from the larger indicating its presence. And then, after five minutes of following the winding sand path, they find what they’ve been searching for.

It’s hard to miss.

In the center of a dozen-mile wide forest, amid the thick and endless vegetation of a wild pine forest, sits a mansion, all gray stone turrets perched over pale brick walls, arched windows looming over a vast green lawn. A brick wall towers in front of the lawn, the iron bars of the gate impossible to fit through.

“Holy shit,” Matt murmurs. “I didn’t think it’d be that _big_.”

“Didn’t, did ya?” Wade purrs, and the both of them give him looks so scalding his suit practically catches fire. “Alright, alright, forget it,” he mumbles.

“I’ll go first,” Peter says.

“Fuck no,” Matt objects sharply. “I’m going in. You’re not going anywhere until we’ve checked for traps.”

The black eyes of Peter’s mask give him a long, empty stare. “I thought we talked about this, Matt,” he says honestly. “I’m not a kid anymore. I can jump this gate easy. Let me scout out and I’ll pull the rest of you through.”

“Wait, wait,” Wade interrupts. “Look, Peter, I trust your skills and all, but Matt has a point. I’m the one that won’t die if they pull an Indiana Jones trap on us and have a buncha redstone contraptions firing arrows at the first person to vault over. I get shot all the time, and you - well -” He pauses, remembering the injuries attained by both parties the first time he’d met Peter. “Look, point being. Lemme go first. I’m excellent at climbing gates, trust me.”

Wade is not excellent at climbing gates, per say. Rather, he is excellent at getting to the top of gates, and also rather good at healing from the rest of the fall. It’s perhaps a twenty foot plunge to the lawn on the other side of the iron bars, and he has to lay on the ground for a long moment after, groaning as his torn ankle ligaments knit themselves together well enough for him to walk. Matt and Peter, standing on the other side of the gate, both sound oddly concerned for no reason Wade can parse.

The lawn, for all Wade can tell, is a normal one. There are no armed guards waiting, guns-in-hand, for their arrival, nor does the grass give way to an acid pit under Wade’s feet. He checks the corners and finds only security cameras, which he shoots. Survey completed, he returns to the gate, where he watches as Spidey vaults his way over and then bends the iron bars far enough to allow Matt entrance.

The three of them stand before the mansion’s front steps for a moment, eyes trained upon the iron doors sheltered between twin stone pillars.

“There’s no one there,” Matt says, though he sounds almost uncertain. “I can’t hear any heartbeats.”

“Good enough for me,” Wade says, and levels his gun with the door’s locks. It embeds itself a few inches into the metal and leaves no effect on the lock. 

“Well, shit,” Wade mumbles, and reaches a hand out to Peter. “Duffel bag, please.”

Peter delivers. Wade digs amid the mishmash weaponry for a moment before locating and removing the object required for the job at hand.

“Is that a _bazooka_?” He hears Peter say, either in horror or awe. 

Wade waves over his shoulder at the two of them. “Back up, darlings, this’ll get messy.”

They comply. Wade fires, and the resulting flames leave his suit only reasonably singed. The door is left in smoking, melted rubble on the marble floor.

Wade grins to himself and steps over the wreckage into the house beyond.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ha ha ha, regular update schedules? actual editing of chapter content? consistent chapter length? sounds like cowards material to me amiright folks
> 
> anyway leave comments for me to lap up like the cave monsters do their algae


	16. Chapter 16

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The mansion is empty.
> 
> Too empty. It’s all hollow space, open foyers and marble columns. They find a kitchen - it’s untouched, fridge empty and dishes clean. Wade walks alone along a back hallway, running his fingers along the eggshell wallpaper, and hears the echoes of his own footsteps, deafening in the silence. He finds an office - empty, unused. There’s a movie theater where he walks along the deserted isle seats and stares at the empty patch of wall where the movies are supposed to play. There are at least a half dozen bedrooms, with white sheets folded like crisp origami paper.

The mansion is empty.

Too empty. It’s all hollow space, open foyers and marble columns. They find a kitchen - it’s  untouched, fridge empty and dishes clean. Wade walks alone along a back hallway, running his fingers along the eggshell wallpaper, and hears the echoes of his own footsteps, deafening in the silence. He finds an office - empty, unused. There’s a movie theater where he walks along the deserted isle seats and stares at the empty patch of wall where the movies are supposed to play. There are at least a half dozen bedrooms, with white sheets folded like crisp origami paper.

They’ve split up. Wade was assigned the second floor, Peter the third, Matt the first. It was necessary, once they realized that if there was no one prepped and ready to leap at them from behind the marble columns. It’s been ten, twenty minutes - and Wade’s found nothing, not a single proof of life. There’s dust in every crevice.

It’s so quiet that, when he hears footsteps behind him, his heart starts thudding in his chest and adrenaline rushes through his veins. He whirls around, gun already prepped and levelled at the intruder’s head.

The black glass eyes of Matt’s suit stare back, empty and unflinching.

Wade drops his gun to his side, clicking the safety off. “Jesus Christ, buddy, it’s like you  _ want _ me to blow you to Kingdom come.” 

Matt’s cheeks color.

Wade pauses. “Okay, poor wording. Or fantastic wording, depending on your point of v-”

“I found something,” Matt interrupts. “Downstairs. Go find Peter and tell him to come see.”

“Found  _ what? _ ” Wade asks, but Matt has already turned on his heel and began to stride away. 

Peter is leaning against a cabinet in one of the spare bedrooms, looking through a photo album. When Wade appears in the doorway, he beckons him closer and flips through the pages for him.

“It’s mostly empty,” he explains, “But there are a few photos here, on the last page, where’d they go - Here! See?” He looks up at Wade and holds out the book, which Wade takes.

It’s has two battered, aging plastic photos, both torn at the edges. The first, unmistakably, is of Orpheus - the same easy smile, crisp features. He looks younger, a little softer at the edges. There’s a woman at his side, wearing a stained white lab coat. She’s holding a sheet of papers up to the camera and grinning, though the text is too blurred to see through the camera lens. They’re in some sort of laboratory, standing before sunlight white counters.

The second photo is of the woman, again, this time wearing a hospital gown and tucked into a medical cot. She’s smiling at the camera again, and someone’s holding her hand.

“That’s Orpheus,” Wade says, pointing at the man in the first photo. “No clue about the other one, though.”

“Keep the first one,” Peter suggests. “Could be useful.”

Wade tucks the photo into his belt. “Matt told me to get you to come downstairs. Apparently he found something.”

“At least someone’s being productive,” Peter says, and pushes away from the cabinet.

\--

Matt’s standing in one of the empty hallways, when Wade and Peter find him. It’s a sunlit hall, with marble pillars down the center and massive glass panelled windows opposite the wall. Matt’s standing between two of the pillars, facing the wall.

“Hey, Double-dee,” Peter calls, voice echoing loudly as he breaks into a jog. He catches up with Matt and skids to a halt. “What’s crackin?”

“There’s something under the tile,” Matt says, frowning. He holds an arm back and pushes Peter backwards slightly. “Careful, don’t step on it. Some sort of weight mechanic-” he drops abruptly into a crouch, rapping on the floor with one set of gloved knuckles. Wade, strolling to a halt by the pillar, looks down and watches as Matt tilts his head, listening to the echo.

“It’s distributed according to tile,” Matt says, “and weighted pretty heavily - but there’s a definite budge there, if I just find the exact spot-”

He taps at the tile again, then shifts forward. This time, he reaches out and taps on the wall before standing abruptly. He steps forward, onto the same tiles he’d just warned Peter to avoid, and presses hard against the wallpaper.

There’s a clicking noise, and the wallpaper gives in. A patch of wall, about a square foot in diameter, swivels about as if on a round-a-bout before clicking into place the opposite way around.

There’s a creaking sound from the tiles below Matt’s feet, and the marble panels abruptly fall an inch or two below the rest of the hall. Matt shifts, widening his stance, and there’s a whirring as the tiles continue to sink into the ground.

Matt beckons the two of them, and Peter scrambles to follow him into the four-square of sinking tiles. Wade jumps after them, landing with a slight thud as the tiles have already sunk six or so inches into a dark gray concrete void.

“Uhm, Matt,” Peter says, “Any clue where this is taking us? Not that I’m not enjoying the ride, but. Tower of Terror always made me sick anyways.”

“I can’t sense much,” Matt murmurs, “The stone is too thick. There’s a long gap below us, though, and a very complicated machine operating this lift.”

Wade looks up at the increasingly distant tunnel mouth. “Hey,” he says, “has anyone read the Cask of Amontillado?”

Silence ensues for a long, uncomfortable moment, before Matt snaps it beneath his tongue with a start to attention and a shift in his stance. “There’s someone below us,” he says, “we’re descending into some kind of room, and there’s a heartbeat.”

Peter wraps his hands into fists. Wade clicks the safety off on his gun, and Peter gives him a warning look; he shrugs, but doesn’t click it on again.

The elevator shudders, for a moment, a slice of fluorescent pale light comes into view between the concrete and the sinking floor panel. It gradually spreads larger and larger until Wade has an angled view of the room beyond - concrete walls, hanging lightbulb, a singular swinging door, like one from a kitchen. In the center is a rickety kitchen chair, and perched on it, a woman with long brown hair hefting a pistol.

The platform settles on the floor, clicking as it comes to a halt. The woman raises the pistol - it glints in the pale light - and points it directly between Matt’s eyes.

Matt, slowly, raises his hands above his head. Peter tenses, infinitesimally, besides Wade - he’s not sure how he knows, only Peter’s languid, fluid movements seem to stutter somewhat, like a machine hitting a break in the cogs.

The woman makes eye contact with Wade and gestures with her pistol. Wade, finding himself eerily calm despite the light flashing on the pistol muzzle, clicks the safety off his gun and slides it back into his belt.

“My name’s Jolene,” The woman says, looking at them through a suspicious squint of the eyes, “and I think you three ought to turn around.”

“And why’s that?” Matt asks. His Daredevil voice is back, gravelly and hoarse. Wade wonders if it hurts his throat to talk like that.

“Because this is my job,” Jolene says determinedly, “I work here, and I’m very invested in the progress we’ve made, and I don’t think I plan on letting three trouble-makers ruin all that.”

“Your job,” Matt agrees, “Yes, that - what’s your job, exactly?”

Peter gives Wade an exasperated look. Wade, for the second time in two minutes, just shrugs.

Jolene’s eyes flicker between Peter and Wade before settling back on Matt. “I’m a research scientist for Lazarus, obviously - you knew that, that’s why you’re here, you want to destroy all our work. Orpheus told me there might be people coming to make trouble, and when you busted in the door I called him. He’ll be here, pretty soon.”

_ Great _ , Wade thinks, suddenly becoming all the more irritated with the roadblock that is Jolene’s intervention. He surges forward, coming to a halt when she gives him a warning look, putting his hands up.

“Say, Jolene,” he begins, amiable - “Jolene, Jolene, Jolene, Joleeeeene - that’s got a ring to it, always does - but point being,” he scrambles, when she starts to look angry, “I’ve gotta little query for you. A curiosity, if you will. See - we’re not really here to make trouble. We’re just curious about this little….situation, you got going on here, you know, with the basement dungeon and the terrible lighting - what can you tell us about that, m’lady?”  
“You’re not going to get me to put down my gun,” Jolene says, frowning. “But if you’re actually interested - well, we’re discovering immortality, obviously. That’s the entire point. Orpheus has been the only one with the guts to fund this whole project, and it’s coming through. The scientific community today is - it’s a _disaster_ , Red, it’s a total clusterfuck. It takes so long to get anything done because there’s all these pointless hoops you gotta jump through, all these so called ‘human rights standards’ they come and check your experiments for. I feel like a lion and they the flaming hoop, honest.”

Jolene’s on a roll, now, having hit a topic that she clearly is invested in. Wade just nods her along, encouraging. She leans forward a slight bit and continues, “but the thing is, they can’t understand the full scale of things. I mean, sure, I don’t _enjoy_ human experimentation. It’s a nasty part of the job. But when you think about humanity as a whole - the millions of billions of people who are gonna benefit from our studies on immortality - the human experiment’s suffering is quickly wiped out from the billions of people who will extoll the benefits of our hard work. We’re changing society _forever,_ and for the better - imagine a world where death was a _choice_ , where you could heal from every wound and survive every kind of cancer. You could be shot in the head and just wake up with a headache.”

Wade gives her a half smirk under the mask, then glances at Peter, who’s standing with his hands up slightly, on either side of his head. Peter meets his eyes, then glances at Jolene. Then he drops his hands, pointing them out towards Jolene, and -

A lot of things happen at once. Jolene spots his lightning-fast movement, tracing it with wide eyes, and points the gun towards them, firing at random; Wade feels an explosive pain in his abdomen and doubles over in pain; when he glances up, Jolene is on the floor, thoroughly spiderwebbed to the point of immobility. Peter is holding the pistol.

Wade groans and lifts his hands from his abdomen. There’s blood, there, spreading across his chest, and with it the kind of explosive, ringing pain that rattles his entire body with tremors. He shudders, taking in a breath that catches in his throat like ash.

“Fuck,” Matt says immediately, rounding on him. “Are you okay? Jesus Christ, that’s a lot of blood.” He chokes on the  _ Jesus Christ, _ like the blood is copper weighing down his tongue. 

“I’ll be fine,” Wade grunts, hands hovering over the gunshot wound. The flesh is warm, uncomfortably so; already it’s knitting itself back together. “Fine, just -  _ god _ , that stings.” He levels Jolene with a cold stare behind the eyes of his mask. “I was very polite to you, you know, so you can go fucking fuck yourself, you know that?”

Jolene doesn’t return his rage. She’s laying on the floor, scooted up against the wall with her hands bound at her side, and staring at him with massive eyes like he’s an alien come to Earth. Her breath, stunted by the cobwebs round her chest, comes in great heaves.

“You’re - you’re him,” she gasps. “You’re Lazarus point one, you’re the successful experiment - Jesus Christ, I’ve been waiting for this moment -”

“Let’s go,” Peter says, talking over her, and makes for the swinging door. He steps around the chair and holds it open, Matt following in his footsteps.

Wade stays fixed to his spot, staring at Jolene. Her words seem to rattle in his mind, knocking up uncomfortable against his thoughts. 

“You - you are the  _ pinnacle _ of a perfect lab rat, a perfect soldier - oh my God, we’ve spent so long waiting for you. Preparing experiments, cages, working out how we’d duplicate your immortality - there’s so much that could be  _ done _ with you, you’re the single most useful experiment in existence right now - we could give you cancer and take it out again, test vaccines on you, see what happens when you starve and how to fix it. Orpheus told me the experiment was coming, but he didn’t say it - he didn’t say it was  _ you-” _

Peter is staring expectantly at him from the door. The pain is back, rattling Wade’s entire body, and with it a cold heavy stuttering in his chest. He feels paralyzed, unable to move - just to stare at Jolene, into her enthusiastic greedy stare, looking at him like he’s a specimen in a petri dish. Cold fingers ghost over the back of his neck.

Matt steps up from the door and takes his hand. The unexpected warmness of it settles Wade, centers him. He tears his gaze from Jolene to Matt, eyes tracing the stubble on Matt’s jawline, and feels some of the ash in his throat settle.

“Come on,” Matt murmurs, “Let’s get out of here.”

So Wade does.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so this took a while! oops. but hopefully i've gotten back in the rhythm of it. please leave comments for me to rattle like the yeti does bones


	17. Chapter 17

They’re in a lab, sure enough - the classic creepy kind, with starch-white counters and strange simmering liquids in lidded beakers and floating rats staring at them from jars, dead eyes stretched wide and unseeing. Wade doesn’t like laboratories, never has, not since in high school when they had to dissect a baby rabbit and all he could think about was the ones that lived in the bush-crowded back of his trailer park, small and quiet and staring at him in silence whenever he ventured there to escape his father’s loudness. Laboratories were starched and chilly places, then, reminders of his own mortality in every creature floating, violent in its stillness, in jars of preserve. 

Now, walking slowly through the long corridor of counters and cabinets and sparkling tiles, the specimens in their shelves only provide the opposite meaning. _You are not us_ , they seem to tell him. _You will never be_.

And it’s almost worse, really.

Wade is still shaky, still jumbled from his momentary uncertainty in the elevator room. His hand is tight around his gun and his abdomen aches with rattling, seizing pain as it slowly knits the flesh back together. Peter had apologized, almost immediately, for making the move he’d made - “I didn’t think she’d shoot that fast,” he confessed, “I didn’t think she’d hit you-”

Wade had waved him aside. “It’s fine, boo,” he’d said, “This is my Tuesday evening. Wait till I tell ya about that time with the ninjas who got all my limbs - but anyway,” he’d cut himself off, upon seeing Peter’s increasingly widened suit eyes, “I’m doing fine and dandy, no need to stress.”

Evidently, that attempt at easing concern hadn’t been entirely convincing, because Matt still looks tense and worried as he walks along with Wade down the laboratory counters. When Wade glances at him, a question lurking on the edge of his tongue, Matt shakes his head.

“The file’s not here,” he says, giving the right answer to the wrong question. “I know what it sounds like, it - there’s just lab equipment and a lot of chemicals.” He sounds strained, like he’s choking.

Wade stares.

“What,” Matt asks, impatient. 

“Are you gonna vomit?”

Matt startles and doesn’t answer.

“You sound like you’re gonna vomit,” Wade says, finding himself genuinely concerned. “Hold on, lemme-” he glances around in search of some kind of garbage can, spots a large, empty specimen jar sitting by a nearby sink, and pounces on it. “Aha! Here you go.”

He hands it to Matt, who holds it tentatively, at arms’ length. “I’m not going to vomit,” Matt says, still sounding tense. “I’m fine.”

“Don’t sound like it.”  
“It’s just,” Matt grits out, “This place. Smells like chemicals and dead things, it doesn’t - it makes it hard to breathe.”

Wade stares at him, then glances around. “Then let’s get out, hun, it’s giving me the creeps too - where’s Spidey? He’ll know where to find a door-”

Spidey is, in fact, several feet behind them and thoroughly preoccupied, having found a notebook of lab notes. Wade stomps up to him and snaps a finger in his face. Peter absently pushes his hand aside without glancing up.

“Shh,” Peter shushes, “I’m reading.”

“Library closes at two, Peterman,” Wade commands. “Now march forth with your brethren adventurers before Matt vomits all over this exceptionally shiny floor.”

“I’m not going to vomit,” Matt says, looking very sick. 

Peter glances at Matt, glances back at the notebook, and flips the notebook closed before shoving it into his backpack. Matt frowns, but doesn’t comment.

“Yeah, okay, let’s get out of here,” Peter says. 

The next room they find is a concrete hallway, just as claustrophobic as the elevator room by which they’d entered. It has three doors - all identical, two across each other at the hall and one at the end; Matt raps on them quietly to get a sense for the spaces inside.

“This one’s something metal, with bars,” he says quietly, pointing to the one on the left. “This other one’s got…. some sort of trapdoor. I’m not sure. There’s a painting and some marble on the floors. A lot of concrete. And this one-” he gestures towards the far door - “has some sort of elevator contraption, again - there’s a pit going down.”

“Left,” Wade says, at the same time as Peter says “Right”, and they commence a rock paper scissors tournament to determine who wins. Wade makes a finger gun and blasts Peter’s rock into charcoal and Peter webs Wade’s finger gun into more of a paper airplane. By the time Wade glances up from detangling the web fluid from his gloves, Matt has already opened the door on the left and is propping it in place as he waits.

Peter gives a heavy sigh and acquiesces, Wade on his heels.

Matt was right; the room is all metal - metal floors, metal ceilings - thick metal bars stretched between, forming a kind of jail cell at the back of the room. There are alarm sirens paced along the ceiling and strobe lights behind the bars.

“The fuck,” Wade says slowly. “What the hell is supposed to _go_ in there?”

Matt taps him on the shoulder and points at the wall behind them. Wade turns around, slowly, and goes still as he spots what Matt is gesturing towards.

Locked in the wall, behind a thick glass case that’s deadbolted closed, an inhibitor collar hangs from a hook in the concrete. Chillingly familiar.

“Oh,” Wade says. Numb. He stares, head tilting slightly, as he examines the collar’s curved edges and darkened lights.

Peter makes a distressed sound, but he’s not looking at the wall. He’s staring at a patch of concrete, apparently zoned out; when Wade looks at him he snaps to attention, shifting his stance.

“Something’s wrong,” he says, voice tense and almost anxious. “I gotta go. I’m gonna check the way we came in.”

“Peter?” Matt asks, looking concerned again. “Are you-”

“Yeah,” Peter says. “Yeah, just, you know. Spidey-sense. I’ll be fine.”

And with that he brushes past them, disappearing into the hallway. Wade watches the open door for a moment, tempted to follow Peter out, but his attention snags back on the collar hanging in its case and he stills.

“Leave it,” Matt murmurs, reaching out - his gloves fingers linger, faintly, on Wade’s wrist. He glances at Matt and swallows.

“Yeah,” he mumbles, assent like ashes in his throat. “Yeah.”

“Don’t want to set off any alarms,” Matt explains. “We’ll destroy it on the way out.”

“Mm,” Wade says, reluctant. Matt lets his hand drop, backing a step or two away. He tilts his head slightly, as though listening, and then steps through the door, back into the hallway. Wade follows, tagging at his heels, and glances down the hall from whence they came as he searches for Peter.

The laboratory door is propped open, and Peter is visible bent over a notebook at the far end of the laboratory. Wade gives a heavy sigh.

 _“Nerd_ ,” he mumbles.

Matt ignores him and brushes past to the opposite door, tapping gentle on the surface before cocking his head a little as if listening. Appeased by whatever he hears, he twists the doorknob and steps inside, holding it open for Wade.

Wade walks through lightly, hesitant despite himself: usually he would be all blustering confidence, the air of a man who’s taken on hit jobs similar to this a thousand times before, but now - still shaken by Jolene’s excited rambling and sobered by the sight of that dull, unactivated suppression collar - he finds his pulse darting and heavy in his throat. His boots click against the floor and the noise rings in his ears.

The room, as Matt had described, is full of marble. It’s so full of marble that for a moment, Wade feels blinded - taken aback by the abrupt shift from dull and depressing grayscale stones to vivid glowing tiles. It covers the walls and floor, shined and bright, giving way only to dark wood rafters across the high ceiling. The room is larger than the other, at least twenty feet made larger by the bright white light cast from lanterns placed in all four corners, hanging from the ceiling on steel chains. 

“The fuck,” Wade mutters, stepping forward slowly. He half expects the floor to crumble beneath him, into another dismal dark basement trap - not this bizarre, heavenly apparition.

Matt’s already leaving him behind, pacing to the middle of the room with his back to Wade. He stops at the center, then kneels, head bowed, and for a long bizarre moment Wade thinks he’s praying.

“It’s a tomb,” Matt murmurs - voice echoing about the room - and the illusion shatters like glass. It’s a tomb, of course it’s a tomb - not a crypt, not a house of skeletons and rattling darkness, but some sort of underground mausoleum. Bright and clean and lanternlit. Someone’s bizarrely placed memory, enshrined, dozens of feet below the ground - so far from sunlight not even moss and lichen would dare to creep over the walls.

Wade steps up to Matt’s side, arms crossing over his chest as he tilts his head down at the object of Matt’s interest: a black obsidian patch sunk further into the marble, with bright white words engraved in the stone. 

**_Magdalene_ **

**_1984 - 2018_ **

**_Your Orpheus Approaches_ **

“Magdaline, 1984 - 2018, your Orpheus approaches,” Wade reads to Matt. “That’s all it says.”

“Orpheus,” Matt says slowly. “Another play off the myth, the Orpheus tale. That’s what Jolene was saying, that they’re doing a research project that involves subverting death - leading forth from the underworld, like Orpheus hims-”

Matt cuts himself off mid-sentence and tenses, a movement so miniscule below the suit that Wade only tracks it from the way his gaze had been idly distracted by the curve of Matt’s shoulders. Wade mimics, following suit as he tenses and turns towards the door.

Matt whirls to his feet, tugging his batons from his belt, and paces halfway to the closed door by the time Wade has drawn his gun and braced it in both hands, awaiting whatever threat Matt has detected.

Before Matt can reach to open the door a sound shrieks through the air, brazen and screeching. A siren, causing Matt to seize in place and double over. 

The door swings open.

Orpheus glances around, gaze dragging from Matt, a few feet away, to Wade, still standing by the tomb with his gun held aloft.

He swings the door shut, muffling the sirens somewhat. His smirk stretches into a grin as he stares at Wade, then slowly lifts the pistol resting in his grasp. “Ah, Wilson,” he greets, taking several quick steps forward, “Just the person I’ve been waiting to see.

And he presses his gun - softly, gently, barely a brush of metal to skin - against the angle of Matt’s jaw.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> we're nearly to the end, folks, so leave some comments for me to slurp like a fairy does morning dew
> 
> edit notes: just edited some details near the end, namely put in the siren detail


	18. Chapter 18

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Once, when Wade was in his twenties, he got caught in a car crash. It had happened quickly, lasted mere seconds; according to the passing witnesses, they’d not known anything had happened until the screech of metal gave it away. But for Wade, it had felt like an eternity in that mere second, as everything stilled around him: there he was, slouched in the driver’s seat as he sped through an intersection. Rain was pouring down his windshield, and the midnight was lit only by the shallow chill of nearby streetlamps, and the other car nearly bowled his over there in the chilly winter rain. Afterwards in the hospital he would remember something he’d read in his middle school physics textbook about black holes: Due to a peculiar effect known as gravitational time dilation, an object falling into a black hole appears to slow as it approaches the event horizon, taking an infinite time to reach its location. 

Orpheus presses the cold metal of the gun to Matt’s jaw, and everything slows down.

Once, when Wade was in his twenties, he got caught in a car crash. It had happened quickly, lasted mere seconds; according to the passing witnesses, they’d not known anything had happened until the screech of metal gave it away. But for Wade, it had felt like an eternity in that mere second, as everything stilled around him: there he was, slouched in the driver’s seat as he sped through an intersection. Rain was pouring down his windshield, and the midnight was lit only by the shallow chill of nearby streetlamps, and the other car nearly bowled his over there in the chilly winter rain. Afterwards in the hospital he would remember something he’d read in his middle school physics textbook about black holes: _Due to a peculiar_ _effect known as gravitational time dilation, an object falling into a black hole appears to slow as it approaches the event horizon, taking an infinite time to reach its location._

That car crash was Wade’s black hole, catching every moment of his slow descent towards the other car and holding it still. Like honey in the timestream, winding every second into an infinity: it had felt like that car would never reach him, felt like an eternal second slowly winding away, as the glare of headlights grew blinding in his passenger side window and a roaring of tires became audible through the rain.

Now, as Wade stands in a dead woman’s blinding marble tomb and watches a stranger press a gun to the chin of a man he’s barely known for months and tried to kill for nearly as many, Wade feels like he’s back at that intersection. Caught in an accidental eternity, his life taken out of his hands: he wobbles, precarious, on an event horizon, before him the infinite expanse of the single second it took for that gun to nestle to the left of Matt’s adam’s apple. 

Wade’s gun is still braced in his hands. He balances it carefully, finger resting over the trigger, towards Orpheus’s head. Orpheus just smiles, shakes his head, and lifts the hand not holding the pistol to dangle something metal in front of him like a man holding treats out to a dog: it’s the inhibitor collar from the other room, blinking red to signal that it’s on.

Wade’s head swims, somewhat, with the sudden rush of adrenaline; a dozen quips and clever taunts pass through his mind and slink out of his thoughts before he can hold them still long enough to say them. He opens his mouth, and is silent for a moment before the question slips out.

“Why?”

Orpheus quirks an eyebrow, glances around as if reminding himself where they are. “Why? Take a look around, won’t you? Put it together.”

Wade’s head momentarily reassembles itself enough to form a coherent sentence. “This may surprise you, but my detective skills actually have hourly rates - unless you’d forgotten; I don’t recall you paying me for my hitman services, either.”

Matt’s head tilts, just slightly. The pistol follows its movement, staying fixed against his skin, but Orpheus otherwise ignores him.

“Put down the gun,” Orpheus commands. Wade swallows, and complies. Orpheus smiles slightly as he continues.

“If it would help reassure you,” he drawls, “I suppose I can give you a few hints. See this? You know what it is, correct?”

“A tomb,” Matt murmurs, voice rough and quiet. Orpheus smiles. 

“Correct,” he agrees. “A tomb. Do you know who is buried here? Magdalene, it says, I’m sure you read - Magdalene being my wife, you see. She passed away some time ago. She was a scientist, like me - it was how we met.”

“How romantic,” Wade says, eyes tracking on Matt for a moment before dragging back to Orpheus. “Do tell us more. Were there flowers? Sweet, slow sex under the light of glowing radioactive beak-”

“Don’t interrupt me, Wilson,” Orpheus barks, voice growing hard all at once. The order in his voice is palpable, heavy with command in the way few people can muster. Something in Wade snaps and he goes stock-still, dead-silent, before he even knows what he’s done; too many years of taking orders still leeched into his bones. One look at Matt tells a similar story; Matt has gone rigid and straight-backed, chin up. A soldier mentality, Wade thinks - but something tell him Matt didn’t get it from the military. 

Orpheus sounds satisfied when he continues, as though that was precisely the reaction he expected. His smile returns. “As I was saying, Magdalene and I - we were soulmates, of course. I was never happier than when I was with her. She was a biologist studying life cycles - how to manipulate them, elongate them - it was her passion, her prime joy. After she died I had to continue her legacy, so I built this laboratory - extremely private, hidden from the scientific world at large - and stocked it with the best scientists I could find; all of them capable minds willing to do whatever it takes to achieve our necessary goal.”

“You’re batshit,” Wade murmurs, too quietly for Orpheus to hear. Matt’s mouth twitches up at one corner.

“We’ve made a lot of progress,” Orpheus continues. “I’m quite proud of what we’ve achieved, and I think Magdalene would be, too. There’s only so far one can go with mere rabbits and mice, of course - and the people we experimented on were hardly at all more helpful - but when we heard of the success of your experiment, we knew it was our best chance.”

Wade’s throat is dry again. “You manipulated me,” he says, voice carefully neutral.

“It was a bit difficult to set everything up, yes,” Orpheus agrees. “You’re not an easy man to pin down, Wilson, and we knew raw force wasn’t our forte. We had to convince you to come willingly, somehow; that’s how Daredevil came into the frame.”

Matt’s adam’s apple bobs, just slightly; Wade’s eyes, which have been tracking the movement of the pistol, follow the motion. 

“We had to wind him up, somehow, get him on the defensive. He doesn’t have many known human connections, but kidnapping his lawyer Nelson seemed to do the trick. After we framed you for that little incident by the river, it was predictable enough that he’d do our job for us; he’s always been an investigative type, big fan of legal _evidence_ and whatnot. He and Murdock were very hasty in their investigations; the file they put together was exceptionally useful in maintaining your compliance.”

Wade stays silent; he’s afraid of what would come out, if he were to speak, just then. 

Orpheus smiles. “But you’ve been awfully quiet, Wilson,” he prods. “Don’t you have anything to say? After all - you and the Devil here seem to have developed a bit of a bond, and this could be the last time you see him alive; I would want to speak, if I were you.”

“You won’t kill him,” Wade says, surprising himself with his own confidence. 

Orpheus’s eyebrow’s quirk again, an unspoken question.

“You won’t kill him,” Wade repeats. “You need him to keep me in line. That’s how you’re going to get me to stay; the file was just bait. When I didn’t buy in the first time your plan shifted. That’s why you followed us here - you want to use him against me and use Murdock and Nelson against him.”

A scowl passes across Orpheus’s face, fleeting and gone in a mere moment. “...Perhaps,” he says, after a long silence. “But that does not change things. We have plenty of back-up plans at hand; whatever happens here, you are not leaving this laboratory. I have taken care in being sure of that.”

“I saw,” Wade agrees, and the words grate against his throat on the way out. He narrows his eyes at Orpheus through the mask. “You have quite a setup. I’m honored, really, to have such pains taken when I am a mere guest in the house.”

“We have been working,” Orpheus says quietly, “for a very, _very_ long time.”

Wade tilts his head. Breathes in. Breathes out. 

“Immortality,” he says. “That’s what you want, right?”

Orpheus nods his head in acknowledgement.

“Immortality,” Wade acknowledges. “Wanna know a secret about immortality?”

No answer. Wade takes it upon himself to continue regardless.

“It fucking sucks,” Wade begins. “It - hold on, lemme ask you something. You ever been shot? No? Thought so. I have. Lotta fucking times. It really hurts, you know that? And the worst part isn’t even the pain, honestly - it’s that it heals, every fucking time, and your life becomes like static on a record constantly rewinding because nothing can affect you. It can only _leave_ you. That’s the mode it’s set on; because nothing’s new when you’ve played this rodeo five hundred times except the knowledge that you’re gonna play it five hundred times again and fuck it, you _know_ it’s not gonna get better.”

“You’re trying to talk me out of this,” Orpheus observes. His voice is neutral and reactionless.

“I’m just trying to make sure you know what you’re signing up for, babe,” Wade forges on. His eyes track to the open door behind Orpheus, just for a moment, before he forcibly pries them back. Heart beating in his chest, he assembles some ramshackle excuse to keep talking longer. Anything to delay the blinking of that collar loosely grasped by Orpheus’s side. “If you’re really going to put in that much effort just to try and get what I have - look at me. You think I want to be what I am right now? You think I wouldn’t turn hell over for the chance to undo whatever those fuckers did to me?”

Orpheus’s face has darkened, just slightly. The pistol shifts somewhat, just slightly drawing away from Matt’s skin, as he takes a half step forward, away from the door, to pin Wade down with his gaze. “I don’t think you _understand_ ,” he begins, a patient, paced drawl of a sentence, and surges on before Wade can interrupt. “I don’t think you _understand_ just how hard I have worked at this, how long, how vitally important its success has been - I don’t call myself Orpheus for nothing. I chose it as a _reminder_ . Everything I do is for my wife, for her life and for her love - I will be the man to draw her from the grave, to walk with her from the underworld, _I_ will be the man to reinvent life as a renewable resource, and you cannot somehow manipulate me into giving up everything I have worked so hard to create-”

There’s a flash of something behind him, in the doorway. It’s gone the moment Wade’s eyes snap to track it. Matt’s jaw tightens, just slightly.

“I think,” Orpheus says, voice tight and angry, “That you should put on this collar now.”

There is no room for argument in his voice. Wade’s mouth goes dry.

Orpheus holds out the collar. Wade doesn’t move.

“Collar, Wilson,” Orpheus sing-songs. “It’s the collar or your friend. You want to spend the first hours of your imprisonment cleaning up brains from the floor of a tomb, then resist all you want.”

Wade takes a deep, shaky breath and reaches forward, snagging the metal device from Orpheus’s outstretched fingers. He stares down at it for a moment, fingers unsteady, then glances at Matt and sees the other man’s jaw is clenched tight, breath coming out in unsteady, silent gasps.

“Collar,” Orpheus says. His voice, once again, is a command. Wade lifts the collar unsteadily to his throat and feels the metal brush against his skin, twinging slightly; he moves to snap it closed.

Before he can do any such thing there’s a blur of movement before him. Orpheus’s hand is yanked sharply back as white spiderwebs clasp about the trigger finger of the pistol; a red-booted foot swings up and kicks Matt out of the way so hard that Matt stumbles backwards into the wall with a gasp like all the air has been sucked out of his chest; and Peter Parker slams Orpheus up against the wall and pins him, swiftly wrapping webs around his hands and feet; and Wade’s hand stills against the cold metal of the collar. 

There’s a moment of stillness as the situation registers; Matt is leaning over, clutching his chest with a groan as he slumps against the wall; Peter and Orpheus stand stock still, braced against one another; and Wade, slowly, pulls the collar from his throat.

“Took you long enough,” Wade says, staring down at the cold metal.

“Had to get the fucking doors open, didn’t I,” Peter responds, slamming Orpheus against the wall once again before letting him tumble, completely immobilized, to the floor. “Good on you for stalling that long.”

“Told you that was a skill,” Wade murmurs. He glances up. Matt’s head is tilted, ears angled towards him. His jaw is bruised, slightly, on one side, and his shoulders slump under their padded armor.

“You almost put it on,” Matt says. Voice quiet. “Why?”

Wade looks away. His voice is ragged despite itself. 

“You know why,” he murmurs. 

Matt just looks at him. His silence, heavy on Wade’s shoulders, is as much a condemnation as a confirmation. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so i did an oopsie and didn't update but we're getting near the end here,,,so like,, leave comments bls they make me happy,,, also 100 pages!! that makes this the longest solo work i've ever completed!!! ahhhhh. thanks yall


	19. Chapter 19

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Wade, for what feels like the first time in an eternity, cracks a smile and lets himself breathe.

They return to New York City. The journey feels shorter, the buildings along the ride barely flitting by the windows of the bus before they’re out of sight. Wade curls up at a window seat and occupies himself by counting the pigeons they pass by; he loses count around seventy-five but keeps going regardless. Matt doesn’t talk to him, and Peter stands across the empty bus from them, whispering with hushed tones into a burner phone. 

He rejoins them after thirty minutes or so. “I talked to Johnny,” is his announcement, gesturing nondescriptly with the phone he’s still holding. “They’re going to head up the evacuation of Orpheus’s research. Make sure it’s in good hands. There’s enough evidence down there that Orpheus won’t be able to weasel his way outta this one.”

They’d burned the folder of evidence against Wade. It had taken five seconds flat to go up in smoke while Matt shoved Orpheus against a wall and demanded the location of any and all copies. There weren’t any, Orpheus had said; he hadn’t thought it possible for the mansion to be broken into. Matt had agreed, voice hoarse with exhaustion, that Orpheus was telling the truth. Heartbeat steady as anything.

(Some part of Wade had half expected Matt to turn in the folder with the rest of the evidence and throw him to the wolves. That part of him had gone up in smoke along with the evidence folder, leaving a curious absence in its place. He felt off-rhythm, now, without the driving threat of Orpheus hot on his heels.)

“Johnny,” Wade repeats. 

“Storm,” Peter clarifies, and Wade takes a half moment to mourn the last remnants of his no-superhero-interactions policy as it’s sweeped out the metaphorical door.

They make it back into the city. Matt showers the blood and grime off in his apartment; Wade sits on his couch and pretends to look at nonexistent kitchen table magazines while Peter paces about the room and texts his good pal Johnny Storm. There’s a feverish air about the entire ordeal, at first; a frantic absence of purpose; none of them quite know what to do with themselves. What to do with each other. The threat is resolved, but the situation at large remains awkwardly in the air as it trades hands.

Matt comes out of his shower smelling like clean lemongrass shampoo and wearing a brand new button-down over slacks. The mask is set aside, for once, in favor of his old red-tinted glasses. He offers Wade his shower - a begrudging turned insistent offer when Wade resists.

“Fine, fine,” Wade grumbles, when Matt offers for the third time in a row, voice increasingly pointed. “I get it. I’m greasy and you’re mad I sat on you couch. You could’ve just called me a rat-bastard and doused me in hand soap; that’s what I would’ve done.”

“Just take a shower,” Matt says quietly, voice weary. “I’m tired of smelling inhibitor collar and blood every time I step near my living room.”

So Wade takes a shower.

By the time he’s done Peter’s already gone. “He’s helping Storm manage the research issue,” Matt informs Wade, from where he’s snapping his cell phone shut by the counter. “I just talked to Karen and she says Frank tried to stop by the office earlier. Found it in pieces and came to warn her.”

“Frank,” Wade repeats.

“Castle.”

_ Well, fuck me,  _ Wade thinks.

“I already warned her, of course, but that means talk’ll be getting around,” Matt mutters, mostly to himself by the sound of it. “Never underestimate the high school gossip circle that are New York vigilantes.”

“And here I thought I’d gotten out of high school dramatics,” Wade sighs, hobbling over to the counter opposite Matt and draping himself onto a stool. “I suppose history is destined to rhyme. If I really want to try my hand at being an agent of good-will and prosperity I suppose this is what I’ll have to deal with.”

Matt’s stock still for a long moment, as if processing his words, before he straightens abruptly and grabs his cane from where it’s propped against the side-counter. “Get your things,” he calls back to Wade; “We’re heading for the office.”

“The office,” Wade repeats blankly, watching Matt step out of sight behind the corner. “And we are going there because?”

Matt stepped back around the wall just to show Wade his thoroughly unimpressed expression. “Well, it’s not going to clean itself up, is it?”

  
  


The office of  _ Nelson, Murdock and Page _ is a god-damned mess. The couches remain where they were, flipped at awkward teetering angles, the scent of washed-out smoke echoes in the air; ash dusts across the floor around the burnt garbage cans, papers are spread across the floor around upturned file cabinets, and crystalline broken glass dusts the floor around the windows, devil-sharp and glinting in the afternoon sunlight.

Matt produces a broom, dustpan, and stack of cleaning supplies from a folded closet near the coffee-counter and props them against the wall. They start in the waiting room, together lifting the chairs back into place and adjusting the rug. The lamp is set upright again, the glass from the broken bulb dusted into a trash-bag. From there Wade takes the side-office - dusts the glass up from the floor and sorts the papers into neatly stacked files. By the time he’s emerged, Matt has already dealt with the mess in the conference room. Only the sunlit center remains.

The two of them stand for a moment and bask in what’s left of the destruction. The memory of discovering the disaster of it all is still fresh in Wade’s memory, the smell of smoke hot in his nostrils - and yet for a bizarre moment, as he side-eyes the stack of cleaning supplies Matt has helpfully moved into the main room, all he can remember is that day, what must be decades ago, that he’d tried to clean his apartment and ended up pouring bleach in all the corners.

“Remember,” Wade starts, turning to Matt, then pauses. Matt’s head is tilted towards him somewhat, questioning, and Wade’s struck abruptly by how the sunlight casts his cheekbones in contrast, lightening the edges of his five-o’clock shadow.

“Do I?” Matt prompts, and Wade swallows.

“One of our first meetings,” he clarifies. “When I tried to clean my apartment and got bleach everywhere - I didn’t realize you had super-psycho smell sense, then. Thought you were just a bastard.”

Matt raises an eyebrow. “Was I not?”

Wade snorts, then smiles, then shrugs. “Maybe a bit of both.”

Matt silently hands him a broom and dustpan, which Wade accepts as the order that it is, before stepping up to the mass of papers on the desk and beginning to shuffle them into some semblance of order. Wade begins to brush up the ash and glass along the floor, accidentally causing clouds of it to drift up into the air. He’s gotten almost halfway through it all when he’s distracted by a clattering.

Matt swears loudly and drops the stack of papers he was holding. He’s holding his hand up, a dark cut square across the palm, and grimacing. Wade drops the dustpan before he knows what he’s doing and steps closer to take Matt’s wounded palm in his own and examine it.

“I’m fine,” Matt mutters - like Wade hasn’t heard that one before - and tries to tug his hand free. Wade holds it tighter and frowns at it. “There was glass in the pile. I got - I got distracted, didn’t notice.”

“We’ll need to bandage that,” Wade says as he glances up, “It’s too deep and I’m the only one here with hea-”

Wade stops abruptly short as his gaze comes to a halt on Matt’s face. They’re mere inches apart, now, by unintentional chance, and he could count Matt’s freckles were he so inclined. The smell of clean soap from the shower is back, along with a faint scent of ash and fresh coffee. 

“You said something,” Matt says softly. “Back at my apartment, about - ‘being an agent of goodwill’.”

Wade tilts his head, just slightly, and watches him. Something about the moment feels fragile. “I did.”

“Did you mean it?” Matt asks. There’s something urgent in his tone - something left unsaid.

Wade swallows. Takes a breath to find it smells like Matt. Nods.

“I’ve done some thinking, on the bus rides here and back,” he says. “I think - I think my time as a hitman has just about wrapped up. I think I’d like to try my hand at something new. Stop living my life from tearing things down, you know?”

“That sounds like a good idea,” Matt tells him, and his tone is so genuine, so warm and soft, that Wade’s gaze snap back to his face and stays there.

Wade smirks. “You would be one to know a good idea, I guess.”

“Yeah,” Matt says. “Good ideas. Speaking of which-”

And then he surges up to meet Wade and they’re kissing, slow and sweet and all at once. Wade forgets how to breathe for an moment that lasts an infinity, and Matt’s hand is resting gently on Wade’s hip and Wade brings his hand up to the back of Matt’s neck and it’s everything he never thought would come true.

There’s a rattling followed by a loud clashing from the window and the two of them jump apart like startled rabbits, swivelling to face the glass - but it’s just Peter, clambered half in-half out of the frame with the Spider-Man suit fully on. He’s staring between the two of them like he’s just witnessed a very intense tennis match, black suit eyes blown wide, and there’s a self-satisfied smirk to his tone when he speaks, gesturing with a glass wine bottle grasped in his free hand.

“Well,” Peter says, and he holds the bottle up to hit the light. “I see some celebrations are in order.”

The sun is beginning to set on the horizon, and Matt’s hand is still entangled loosely with Wade’s, warm and steady at their sides. Neither of them pull away. 

Wade, for what feels like the first time in an eternity, cracks a smile and lets himself breathe.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> okay i did not update for a very very long time but y'all....i think this is it!! we did it!! i'm so thankful to y'all for sticking with me through 19 chapters and with the longest piece of writing i've ever written. it was really hard to stick with it at times,,but i did! and i'm so proud of myself for that and so glad y'all seemed to enjoy my writing! 
> 
> anyway leave comments for me to snap up like a sea serpent eating whales and have a lovely day


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